And The Escape From Olympus
by CharFire
Summary: Pandora's Box is one of the ancient artifacts that was ever lost to the world. It's extremely dangerous, as it holds all of the most powerful immortal Gods ever written into Greek mythology. It could destroy the world and plunge everything into chaos. And it's just been opened. Now the Librarians are racing the clock to stop the Apocalypse...again.
1. The Box

**A/N: This idea came to me ages ago, and after extensive research, I am ready to write it. The introduction is really long, but I promise that other chapters will be so much shorter. I do not own Librarians, or any Greek history references. Just the plot. Please review!**

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Prologue: The Box

It wasn't anything special. Not at first. She really didn't have too much of an idea why she was drawn to it in the first place. It was pretty, she supposed, and well crafted. But it was so old, and the metal was degraded pretty badly. She was sure her mother hadn't meant for her to use her birthday money on something useless like that. So why was she so fascinated?

Sixteen year old Pandora Sideri wouldn't even have noticed the old box if her mother hadn't suggested she take some of her new birthday money down to this old antique shop and ask about any of their rare coins to complete her ever growing collection. It was a hobby of hers, passed down from her father, and to her father from his father, and they had quite an impressive collection going.

The shop was called "Ελλάδα μυστήρια".

It was this small, rundown little place, hidden away between the shadows of two of the high-rise buildings in Athens, New York. Pandora had no clue what the foreign letters spelled, but the shop itself was intriguing. It was almost stuck out of time. Inside, it was dark, almost pitch black, the windows drawn with shades and the only light coming from old-fashioned kerosene lamps strewn around the shop. Pandora felt as if she was on the verge of something otherworldly, and she couldn't help a nervous giggle that escaped her. There were rows of shelves cluttered with thousands of things, of the oddest antiques, things like clay masks and thin jewelry, or small statues of half-naked women, or vases of men with broadswords held high over their heads in triumph.

It wasn't until she had reached the back of the dusty shop that she had seen it. It was as if it had called out to her by name, and she turned around to see this small, rusty gold box sitting alone on a shelf. It looked almost like a music box, with two small golden handles hanging dejectedly on the sides. The sides were intricately warped with images of what looked like…animals, crawling and twisting. As she stepped closer, she saw that there were people, also. Some were crying, some were screaming, and some were being torn apart by a whirlwind of black smoke. It was strange, and yet….

Pandora took a step closer to the box. It was as if it was calling out to her, whispering to her. It was strange, but in a good way. It was as if she was looking at something oddly familiar to her, even though she had never seen the rusted box before in her life. As she came closer, the whispers grew louder and louder until her ears were buzzing with a different energy. Pandora reached out and touched the lid lightly. A sudden electric pulse shot through her and her eye's widened. This wasn't natural. Something was happening, and it had to be the box. Pandora couldn't look away. The whispering had turned to a sort of music in her ears, like drums and trumpets. It was urging her on….almost begging her….

It was the box. This beautiful, ancient… _magical_ box. Pandora reached out, and opened the lid.

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Jacob Stone leaned back in his chair, his feet propped up on top of his desk, his laptop resting on his knees with the beginnings of a brand new thesis article tentatively written out. He gave a contented sigh. He honestly could not remember the last time he had felt so at peace. Even during his brief sty with the Monkey King , he had been constantly on edge worrying about the rest of his team, how they were faring without him there, about DOSA's next moves, about Flynn's recklessness, about what Apep was planning. Now, with the world once again saved from a magical-apocalyptic disaster, Apep destroyed and DOSA officially dismantled, Jake felt as if a huge weight had been magically lifted from his shoulders.

Well, maybe "magically" was the wrong word. Jake looked down at his right forearm where his new…. tattoo was residing. Or rather, the gift he was bestowed by the Monkey King. It was a series of ancient, inky black runes that circled from his wrist to his bicep. He sighed again and looked out towards the rest of his crazy magic team-his family, to be exact-was relaxing, same as him.

A lot had changed these last few months, years really, for all of them, good and bad. Jake glanced back down at his arm and smiled wryly. All year he had been adamantly protesting, mainly to Cassandra, against the use of magic in their jobs. Now, here he was, imprinted by the rawest forms of magic ever known.

 _Irony makes hypocrites of even the best of us._ Jake thought to himself and shook his head. As he did so, his eyes landed on none other than Ezekiel Jones, who was currently playing with Excalibur in a frantic fencing match on the second floor. Jake would never admit this out loud, but lately he had been rather surprised by the formerly cocky thief, and not in a bad way. He was still an arrogant Australian smartass, but he and Ezekiel seemed to have gotten into a sort of groove the last month or so, and it was…nice. Like having a not-so-nerdy little brother to hang out with. However, as much as he sometimes appreciated the backwards friendship they had going, the kid still irritated him to no end most days. He had once thought that the "Great Ezekiel Jones" wasn't capable of anything deeper than his obvious narcissism and egotistical arrogance. But after the incident a few months ago with that girl, Cindy….Jake chuckled to himself as he remembered the thief's evident blush. Ezekiel Jones-world's greatest thief-had had his heart stolen, and had fallen in love. There was no better blackmail than that when it came to Ezekiel Jones.

Jake turned his observational study then on to the next person he saw: Jenkins. The immortal knight was tinkering with the finicky backdoor, which had been dismantled by Baird once DOSA had raided the entire Library. He was a tough nut to crack, this Galahad, even after they had been working with him for over three years now. He had continuously surprised Jake over and over again, like when Morgan La Fey had revealed his true identity along with hers, or his history with Duloc, or even those days when the Library's caretaker shared with them the seemingly endless wealth of magical knowledge he had on artifacts and their powers. But the thing that had gotten to him the most was when Jenkins-stuffy, melodramatic, old-as-time-himself Jenkins- had confessed his everlasting love for Charlene. Charlene, the Library's own Guardian. There had been no words to describe that shocking plot twist.

Jacob Stone then looked over to the desk across from him-Eve Baird and Flynn Carson. The Librarian and his Guardian. Their Guardian. Jake smiled at the two, Flynn perched on Eve's messy desk, the ex-NATO woman smiling sloppily up at him. Those two had done so much for them all-lied, disappeared, stole, been stabbed, kidnapped, lost in time, frozen in stone. Again, he would never admit it but he owed them so much more than his life and friendship.

He watched as Flynn and Baird's flirtations became more and more heated, so he quickly averted his eyes to the last Librarian. Cassandra Cillian. She was the only person who had ever made him feel so much in such a short amount of time. Her reddish-gold hair was twisted into a knot at the base of her neck, and she was wearing another one of her colorful, sophisticated outfits. She was reading what looked like a rather lengthy article on her laptop. Jake wondered if she was reading one of his newly published papers on Art History and the Sciences. He frowned at himself.

Lately, his feelings towards Cassandra had been leaving him feeling more than a little confused. He was still working on his trust issues, and truthfully, he and Cassandra had really grown closer over the last year and a half, both as friends and Librarians. He remembered how hard it was when they first started working together versus when they had traveled to Peru…what they had confessed a year ago during that job in Oklahoma…and especially how he had felt when Cassandra collapsed and rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. Yes, his feelings had most definitely changed. For a long while now. Jake had almost confronted them once-in London, he had briefly asked Cassie out for a pint-but they were interrupted and h had retreated.

Jake sat up slowly, placing his laptop gently on his desk, his barely written paper forgotten. His mind was reeling. Apep was gone, DOSA was no longer a threat, and there was nothing in the clippings book for once. If he was ever going to make a move, maybe now-

A explosion suddenly shook the entire Annex. The building vibrated hard, sending everyone and everything flying. Ezekiel flew up over the second floor railing and came down fast and hard, landing on the center table with a massive crash. Flynn and Baird dove over their desk and took cover, and Cassandra and Jenkins did the same. Jake, who had been rising to stand, was thrown up and over his own desk and across the room, his head smashing painfully into the metal bars of the staircase. For a moment, he couldn't move as black swarmed his vision.

"Jacob!" Cassandra screamed out, and Jake struggled to get upright amidst the rolling earthquakes. As his vision slowly cleared, he saw the others lying strewn around the floor of the Annex. Flynn was lying atop of Baird, trying to cover her from the flotsam and jetsam hurtling around them. Cassandra was huddled into a small ball underneath her desk. He didn't see Jenkins or Ezekiel anymore, and he hoped to whoever was listening that they were alright.

Another wave of explosions shook through the Annex, sending books, artifacts, dust and debris raining down on them. The vibrations hit a violent point and Jake gripped the bars of the staircase, and he watched as cracks started to break through on the walls. He yelled out for Cassandra, for Flynn, Baird, when suddenly-it stopped.

For a minute, all that he heard was the deafening silence, and that was more terrifying than the earthquakes. As it stretched out longer and longer, he slowly let go of the bars, gingerly testing the waters to see if the disaster really was over. When nothing else happened, Jake took a stumbling step towards where Cassandra was huddled. The desk had taken the brunt of all the damage, leaving Cassie shaken and covered in a fine layer of dust.

"Cassie, are you okay?" he asked, his voice choked and hoarse, and he let out a rough, hacking cough. His head was killing him and his vision was coming in and out of clarity now.

"Jacob, you're bleeding." Cassandra reached out and touched a spot near his hairline and he winced. She pulled her hand back, her fingertips stained with his blood.

"I'm okay." He assured her, taking her hand in his. "Really. I've had worse."

She opened her mouth to say something, but just then a muffled groan was heard from the furthermost corner.

"Eve!" Cassie exclaimed. "Flynn!" She let go of his hands and raced over to her friend and mentor. Jake started to follow, but suddenly he remembered the two others who were missing from the scene.

"Jenkins?" he called out, another cough breaking through. "Jones?"

A series of broken coughs came from beneath the center table, and he made his way over. His left leg twinged painfully every time he took a step, and his chest was starting to ache when he breathed, indicating cracked ribs at the very least. He managed to make his way with minimal pain and saw Jenkins and Ezekiel on the floor, half underneath the desk, their legs sticking out haphazardly.

"Mr. Stone." Jenkins' voice came out steadily from underneath the table. " If you would be so kind as to assist Mr. Jones and myself-"

Jake reached down and grabbed hold of the caretaker's leg and pulled, dragging both him and the thief, who was sprawled on top of Jenkins, from the rubble.

"Ah, yes. Thank you." Jenkins coughed and made to stand, groaning as he did so. He was coated in dust, his white hair askew and his trademarked everyday suit was torn in several places. "And now, Mr. Jones."

"Is everyone okay?" Eve Baird's clear cut voice came through from behind them and Jake turned to see Cassandra and Baird supporting a limping Flynn, and Baird was sporting several shallow cuts across her face and arms.

"Depends." A muffled Australian accent came up from the floor, an Ezekiel Jones's backswept hair came into view from behind the desk and dust as he sat up a little. "Did you catch the number of the bus that hit me?"

"We're alive." Jake assured the Guardian, who was looking at the devastation in saddened horror. "We'll be fine as soon as we get a moment."

"What the hell happened?" Flynn moaned, his eyes clenched shut.

"According to the news," Cassandra started, her phone in hand, "there were startlingly enormous, violent earthquakes happening worldwide. The devastation is monumental. " her eyes glazed over as her numbers started to form. "Based on the incredible velocity and power with which they spread and the range of one set of tremors to the next-"

"It wasn't an earthquake." Jenkins said forebodingly, and they all looked at him in question.

"Are you saying this was magic?" Baird asked. "Someone trying to attack the Annex? The Library?"

"Oh, not again!" Ezekiel whined. He was still on the floor, one arm slung over his eyes. "We just finished dealing with those DOSA blokes, not to mention the whole fiasco with Amen-"

"Apep." Jake snarled, but Jones waved him off.

"Whatever. All I'm saying is that a little courtesy vacation would be nice after all the heroics."

"Well, I'm afraid that may have to wait for quite some time, Mr. Jones." Jenkins said, and again, the team of Librarians looked at the knight with questions in their eyes. Jenkins sighed and motioned to something behind them in the rubble.

"Look at the clippings book."

Jake turned around, his eyes moving towards where he knew the familiar large, tan scrapbook floated on the center desk. Except-it wasn't there. The top of the desk was covered in torrents of books, papers, dust, and debris from the upper levels that had come loose during the explosions. But among it all, there was no sign of the clippings book where it should be.

"Jenkins, where-?"

"Ah. _There,_ Mr. Stone."

And what Jenkins pointed to made all of Jake's injuries throb incessantly and there was a burning sensation on his right forearm, right where his tattoo was imprinted. The clippings book was completely torched, as if it had gone through a flash fire. Jake remembered how the book had burst into flames when Apep was released, yet somehow this was much worse. The entire book, cover to cover, was completely black, every cage charred to a crisp and scorched beyond repair. It was ruined.

"Oh my God." Cassandra whispered, and Jake could hear the pain in her voice. The clippings book was like the soul of the Library-it alerted them to all the rampant magic in the world and of what needed them the most. Without it, they were lost.

"Jenkins-" Flynn started, stumbling out of Baird's grasp. "This-this isn't possible. The clippings book- there is no kind of magic I've seen that could cause this much…"he trailed off as he got closer to the book, his eyes wide and one hand reaching to touch the charred pages.

"If this isn't magic, then what were those earthquakes? Dragons again?" Ezekiel asked, now standing.

"Dragons wouldn't turn the book into-that." Jake pointed out.

"It wasn't dragons." Flynn cut in. There was an odd note to his voice, and he hadn't yet looked away from the book. "It was magic."

"But I thought you just said-" Baird started, but Flynn waved her off.

"I know what I said, and I was right. Partially, I think. No normal, current level of magic use, or misuse, could create this much energy and power, not for a worldwide scale. This has to be ancient magic. Powerful magic dating back centuries, if not further. Magic like this-to be able to physically burn out the clippings book-"

"The End of the World." Jenkins finished. "Total Chaos."

"I thought we just stopped chaos." Ezekiel said slowly. "Or did we just go through all of that just to kill the messenger?"

"Mr. Jones, Chaos is innate. One being that personifies it does not control the actual urge or essence of the instinctual design. Besides, Apep wanted the total chaos that would come from the release of pure eveil. This-" he motioned to the book again, and he went to stand by Flynn as he talked, stepping over shattered glass. "This is pure chaotic magic."

"So what ancient magic is powerful enough to set off earthquakes worldwide and literally blackout the entire clippings book?" Jake said quietly.

"Not the entire book."

That caught their attention. Flynn had been flipping through the empty pages, almost with this absentminded disbelief. He had reached the very last page, something that, until now, Jake hadn't thought was possible. This page was just as destroyed as the others, but unlike the others, this page wasn't empty.

"It's an article." Baird said, stepping forward. "A small antiquities shop-is that Greek?"

Jake came over to where they were huddled and leaned over their shoulders to look at the faint text. The article was almost as burnt as the paper, but most of the writing was still pretty clear.

"Ancient Greek. This adaptation is not commonly used except in more historical relations. Roughly translated, "Ελλάδα μυστήρια" means Ellada's Mysteries. Ellada is another name for Greece."

"So the shop's name was literally "Greece's Mysteries"?" Baird clarified. "Odd choice of title for a place in the middle of New York."

"Athens." Cassandra clarified. 'It was in Athens, New York."

"Forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't that, like, a party city in actual Greece?"

"It's not a "party city", Jones." It's the major acropolis." Jake shot an annoyed look at the younger man. "It's absolutely central to Greece, dating back all the way to ancient mythology, when it was a place favored by Gods and Goddesses."

"Like Athena." Jenkins nodded. "The Goddess of craft and intelligence. It was her temple in the center of the city."

"Athens…Greece…mythology…" Flynn muttered to himself. "I've got a bad feeling about this, Jenkins."

"Likewise, Mr. Carson." The knight said seriously. "This is looking dark indeed."

"So," Baird continued, "it looks like this shop, "Greece's Mysteries", was destroyed in a fire this morning. Some sort of explosion resulting in two casualties."

"Who?" Flynn demanded. "Is there anything that says what was found on the bodies? Or what survived the fire? Anything from the shop?"

"Um," Baird furrowed her brow but leaned back in to decipher the singed article. "The shopkeeper, a Mr. Teno Rubi, died along with a customer who happened to be in the shop at the time. Sixteen year old girl named Pandora Sideri."

'Those are Greek based names-"

"Pandora? Like the music station?"

"More like the-"

"Box!" Baird exclaimed suddenly, making them all jump. Flynn spluttered in surprise and turned, eyebrows raised, and looked at his Guardian in absolute shock.

"What?"

"The only thing the fire crews were able to salvage from the wreck was a small antique box." Baird read, and she raised her eyes to her silent team with a look of apprehension. "Is this what I think it is?"

"She found it." Flynn whispered, and he and Jenkins shared a long, serious look. "Pandora's box."

"Wait, what?" Jake interrupted. "Are you serious? A girl literally named Pandora, who's possibly of Grecian descent, happens to find herself in a New York city named after a Greek city where she enters a Greek antiques shop and finds the only magical object in there-an powerful, ancient object from Greek mythology that leads to mass destruction? Does that seem fixed to anyone else?"

"Well, when you put it like that-"

"Um, excuse me, but could someone please explain what a Pandora box is to those of us who were actually cool in high school?" Ezekiel butted in, a note of irritation evident in his tone. Jake resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Pandora's box." Jenkins took over. "One of the most ancient, and by far, the most dangerous artifact in existence. Now, according to Greek mythology, the box contained all the evils of the world. Pandora was the first woman on Earth, created by the Gods, and unjustly punished by Zeus by being presented with the box and tempted to open it. When she did, she released all the death, war, sadness, and chaos unto Earth. When the box was empty, only Hope remained."

"According to mythology?" Leave it to Cassandra to pick up on the weak spot immediately. "So it's not completely true?"

"No one knows a whole lot about the real Pandora's Box." Jenkins said slowly. "We know of it, but not of appearance. And what we do know is still very uncertain."

"Well, what do we know?" Baird asked curtly.

"Pandora's Box is incredibly dangerous." Flynn explained, starting to pace despite his limp. "It's an artifact Librarians have been trying to obtain for centuries, but one that no one could ever find. See, while it's true that the first woman, Pandora, was given the box, it was not by Zeus, but by Athena. The goddess of craft and intelligence-"

"And war." Jake said with a pointed look.

"Yes. It was a simple gift, but Pandora was greedy and jealous. She wanted to join the gods on Olympus and share in their immortality. She was one of their creations, their child, and yet she would die. When Zeus refused, Pandora became angry and enabled the help of a magister to capture all of Olympus and trap it forever at her side."

"Pandora trapped Olympus, along with every God and Goddess ever written…in a box?" Baird asked skeptically.

"She was created by Gods and so she was capable of instilling their downfall. She was no ordinary mortal." Jenkins shrugged.

"So, if this artifact has always been out there, why hasn't it been opened before now?" Ezekiel prompted. "I mean, I'm assuming that's what happened here."

"Aha!" Flynn exclaimed. "And there's the brilliance. Athena had crafted her gift so that only Pandora would be able to open it under the right conditions. She counted on Pandora to never lose the artifact as long as she lived. It's what's prevented the box from being found and opened recklessly ever since. The magic hid itself until another able to use it was presented."

"Okay, okay. Hold on a second." Jake raised his hand to stop Flynn's excited babbling. "Let me get this straight. Athena charmed the box so only Pandora could open it properly. So when a sixteen year old girl with that exact name came along…."

"If she was as closely connected as we think she was, then it is possible that she was drawn to it by a greater force." Jenkins mused.

"And then released who knows how many immortal Greek deities who have spent all of time imprisoned in a box directly unto Earth." Cassandra concluded and they were quiet for a long time. Jake thought back to the explosions that had just happened, and they was just because the box had been opened.

"We need to get that box." Flynn said finally. "We need to figure out how many Gods escaped from Olympus and get them back before they start wreaking havoc."

"Something tells me that they won't be too eager to go home." Cassandra muttered to Jake, who smirked and nodded in agreement.

"Jenkins!" Flynn yelled, the enthusiasm that had been missing during these last twenty minutes returning with fervor. "Fire up the back door. We're going to Athens. New York!"

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 **Please review!**


	2. The Plan

**A/N: Once again, this is long. Sorry! I had to get a few basics out of the way before the action gets going. Hope you like it! I don't own anything but the plot idea.**

 **Please review!**

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The four Librarians and the Guardian stumbled out onto the streets of Athens, New York from a dirty, decrepit alley between a boutique and a pizzeria. Right away, Cassandra was assaulted with a myriad of scents: grease and flowers, dust and exhaust, and something metallic, the kind of smell all cities seemed to carry. But above all that, there was the overpowering stench of smoke and burning wood.

As they stepped out of the alley, Jacob Stone reached to tap her shoulder, and she turned to face the handsome Oklahoma man. Cassandra tried to quell the small flip her stomach tried to do, but then he smiled a little and her heart stopped, just for a second. She knew what these feelings meant, and they were killing her in a way her tumor hadn't. Cassandra had hoped that over the last year and a half that she had been able to regain some of his trust, get closer as friends and coworkers. He touched her again and she realized he was talking.

"Sorry, what?" Cassandra interrupted, blinking away her dazed thinking.

"I was saying that Baird and I are going to go in front, so hang back a little bit with Flynn and Jones. Okay? I don't want you getting hurt, not until we know who or what is left there."

Cassandra nodded; still flustered over the rush of heat coming from where he touched her. They all stepped onto the sidewalk and were immediately hit with the sheer amount of ash that was floating in the air. It reminded Cassandra of snow.

"That must be it." Baird pointed across the street. Cassandra gasped. There was absolutely nothing left. She could see where it used to be, though in it's place now was just an empty burning pyre between a capital law firm and an apex apartment complex. Where the shop had been, there were only shambles of wood, glass, and smoke. She could see the yellow police tape stretching in a perimeter to hold back curious civilians, the red and blue lights flashing silently, and a city fire truck was pulled onto the curb.

"Well, then what are we waiting for?" Ezekiel pushed past Baird and Stone and started to make his way across the street, when Baird grabbed his arm and tugged him back to the group.

"Hold on there, Race." Baird pushed him back behind her and quickly motioned them all to huddle up. "We can't go about this like we usually do-completely wild. If this really is Pandora's Box, then those earthquakes were only the beginning. We have no idea how many deities escaped, or who escaped. For all we know, one of them could still be hanging around here. So tread lightly." Baird gave the boys pointed looks, and if the situation had been less serious, Cassandra might have laughed. As it was, when Jacob caught her eye, she put on her best face of "doe-eyed" innocence. Jake smirked and muttered a "shut it, Cassie", which made her grin.

Baird turned and motioned the four Librarians to follow closely. As they crossed the street, they got a better view of the damage, which was grossly extensive. The wood was splintered and burned completely black, sharp contrast to the white ashes. There were still a few small fires dying down in corners of the ruins, and Cassandra could only gape at the skeletal remains of the old building. She could see demolished shelves, broken shards of glass that was ground into fine silver powder.

There was something else, too, in the middle of it all. The smell was sweeter and yet all the more foul, and she could see twisted black limbs and burnt cloth. A nauseous feeling made it's way from her stomach to the back of her throat and she gagged. Cassandra was just about to wonder where the appropriate place to vomi crime scene was when she felt a hand on her shoulder, pushing her forward and away from the mangled bodies of Teno Rubi and Pandora Sideri.

"Don't look, Cassie." Jacob whispered to her, and she quickly averted her eyes, but the images of their bodies in the pyre, how they must have screamed as the box was opened, as they burned-

"Cassandra?" Jake held her back a moment, turning her to face him, and she nearly fell apart at the soft concern in his eye. "Hey. Cass." He waited until she was really looking at him before he smiled. "It's okay."

"Jake…" Cassandra sighed and started walking again, but keeping close to him still. The others were up ahead, nearing the police tape, waiting for them to catch up. "We've dealt with a lot these last four years, but…. it's never been anything like this. We always made it in time to fix things and put them right." She motioned back towards the destruction and death. "But I can't see how we could possibly fix this."

They reached the others then, and Cassandra pulled away before Jacob could respond. Baird had managed to wave over one of the officers standing by on scene, and he was carefully making his way over to them. He was young, maybe in his early twenties, and with rather handsome features. Numbers swam in front of her vision as she involuntarily started calculating his symmetrical bone structures, his high cheekbones, the lightness of his eyes and skin to find the probability of his hair color (blonde) and muscle mass.

"Estimated height six foot three, weight average of one hundred eighty, but combine muscle density and-"the smell of something rich wafted across her face-like the forest and coffee and cream and strawberries.

"Ooh, yum." Cassandra hummed to herself, but not quietly enough. Jacob nudged her and she realized that the smell was coming from him. He gave her a questioning look before catching sight of the approaching officer. His face suddenly clouded over as Cassandra blushed and he turned away from her. Great.

"Hi." Baird spoke up and Cassandra noticed that the handsome policeman had reached their area of sectioned off tape. "Listen, we need to-"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry but I am not at liberty to discuss any details of the incident with civilians. This is an ongoing investigation. The public will be informed as we know more, but for now I ask that you let us do our jobs." The officer said shortly. Clearly, he had been forced to say this little speech more than once today.

"Colonel Eve Baird, NATO." Their Guardian announced sternly, and then there was Flynn, who sprang forward next to her, eyes twinkling mischievously.

"And we," he waved his arms grandly at himself, Cassie, and the boys, "are The Librarians."

Those words never failed Flynn Carson. The officer (his nameplate read Daniels) blinked a few times before nodding confidently, lifting up the tape to let them through.

"Of course, you must be the consultants we called from the historical society. Right this way. Our lab technicians are holding the box for safekeeping, performing some preliminary tests, though they've yet to identify how it managed to be the only thing that survived the blast."

Cassandra shared a look meaningful look with Jake and Ezekiel. If only they knew that the box was actually the one thing that had caused the blast. Officer Daniels escorted them away from the watching crowd and to a more secluded area behind an array of emergency vehicles where more uniformed officers were conversing. In the middle of them was a long white table, and in the center of that was a small metal box. Really, it looked like an antique jewelry box. But she supposed that was the initial charm.

"Excuse me." Flynn announced loudly, making every law official turn and look at him suspiciously. The other four shuffled together nervously, although Baird did a much better job of holding her ground against the distrusting glares of the police officers. "We are The Librarians. I believe you have something worth our time."

And just like that, the tension was gone as the magic words did their thing. Baird turned back around slightly to where Officer Daniels was standing by expectantly. With a quick nod, and a salute to Commander Baird, he turned and was gone, back to his position near the front of the sectioned off quarters.

"Ah, yes. Over here." A lab technician waved them over and the five quickly hurried to where the artifact was laying. Up close, the box took on a different perspective. It was silver, almost a rusty pale color, with gold trimming along the edges. On every side, small pictures and portraits of women, men and animals were painted, all with different expressions of fear and rage. Cassandra thought that it probably had looked very at home in the antique shop.

"Excellent. Excellent." Flynn clapped his hands together and grinned at them all a little unnervingly. "Well, we'll just, uh, take this then and be on our way. Thank you-"

He had barely reached for the box when several officers moved forward to block him off. Jacob and Baird likewise moved to flank n either side of Flynn, expressions hard. Cassandra took a step back at the calm fury on both of their faces and she and Ezekiel watched with apprehension.

"I'm sorry, but this is part of an ongoing investigation. You cannot take vital evidence-" one of the techs started, but Baird cut him off with a seasoned NATO level glare.

"Believe me, we understand perfectly clear the importance of this particular evidence. But my colleagues and I have the type of equipment and resources outmatching those of Athens Police. This is officially a federal investigation, and we will be commandeering that box. Thank you for your cooperation." Baird spoke all of this rather quickly, and just as quickly she pushed forward passed the officers and took the box from it's place on the table. Cassandra waited to see if anyone would try to stop her again, but it seemed no one wanted to cross the authority of Colonel Baird. Baird turned away from the sheepish techs and units, the box tucked under her arm, and took Flynn by the arm and started to march away, the three other Librarians running after them.

"Quick, let's get a door up and running before they start to question why NATO is involved in an arson case. " Baird whispered, and the five of them disappeared back into the alley.

* * *

"Jenkins!" Baird yelled out as she stumbled through the door back into the Annex. "Jenkins, we have it! We have Pandora's Box!"

"Quickly, Colonel, over here." The elderly knight waved them over to where he was standing. He was by a large Plexiglas tank, the shimmer of something not quite tangible wavering around it.

"What is this?" Cassandra asked breathlessly. She never quite got used to the feeling of being dropped through a wormhole, even though she'd been using the backdoor for years now. It made her stomach go all wonky.

"Just some extra precautions I made to ensure that while the box resides in the Library, it does not open unexpectedly." Jenkins explained as he took the box from Baird and placed it gently in the center of the tank. As soon as he set it down, the box began to shudder and quake, as if something inside was trying to escape. "Aha! See that? They sense the magic. It's drawing whoever's inside to the top of the box, but they are still unable to break the curse."

"At least we know for sure now that it can only be opened from the outside." Ezekiel pointed out. "Instead of finding out the hard way. Like we usually do."

"Quite right, Mr. Jones. Which is why, when you were off collecting, I did some retrieval of my own." Jenkins mentioned. He motioned them to follow him back towards the center desk of the Annex, where the blackened clippings book still floated. Beside it was another large book, this one very old and careworn, which layers of dust that almost seemed engrained into the bindings. "I found what little information the Library has on Pandora's Box, and I believe it may actually be of use to us."

"You mean, the Library actually has a protocol for when the box is opened and releases an unknown number of immortal gods onto Earth to wreak havoc?" Ezekiel asked, brow raised. "Go figure."

"Not specifically, Mr. Jones." Jenkins gave the thief and exasperated look before continuing. "One of the previous Librarians, Gregoria Fallaistar , made astounding leaps in studying Pandora's Box. In fact, he was the only Librarian who ever came into close contact with the box."

"If he came so close, then why didn't he get the artifact and contain it to the Library?" Cassandra asked.

"Simple. He was killed." Jenkins shrugged and flipped open to a new page.

"What?"

"Look, you know how dangerous this job is. Gregoria came close to the box, close enough to record some basic data and research for the Library archives. But where there's powerful magic, there are those who are trying to obtain it for personal means. In this case, our old friend Duloc."

"Duloc killed the Librarian all those centuries ago?" Jake questioned. "Why?"

"The Serpent Brotherhood, as you may recall, was vastly interested in the most powerful magical artifacts, and this box certainly met those criteria. The last thing they would want would be for the Library to have it. Simply put, they killed the Librarian."

"But then how did-"

"Look, Colonel, I was not an official part of what happened seven hundred years ago. All I have are the answers from that time." Jenkins snapped. "Look. Here."

He turned the book around so they all could see. It was a detailed sketched depiction of the box they now had in their custody, all the way down to the paintings on the side. There were notations describing every asset on the box in a language Cassandra couldn't identify, the writing small and cramped, as if written in a hurry.

"Latin." Jacob Stone leaned forward, squinting at the fine print. "A rather archaic format, too."

"But you can translate it?" Baird asked, glancing from Stone to the book.

"Not easily, and not all of it. It's been a while since I studied this particular branch, and even then I barely knew enough to pass as an art historian." Jacob sighed and rubbed his forehead. "These, here, are notes about each painting shown on the box. According to Gregoria's notes, the paintings represent the actual gods, goddesses, and mythical beings trapped inside Pandora's Box. Each one is specific."

"So the drawings aren't just for decoration, then?" Ezekiel added. "They're the gods?"

"Sort of." Flynn said slowly. "I think I'm starting to understand. When all of Olympus was cast into the box, they weren't just thrown inside. They were mirrored on the outside as well. All of their faces, their emotions, were reflected on the sides of the box, as a warning and as a clue."

"Athena, Persephone, Hades, Zeus…" Jacob read, pointing to different parts of the page, different notes that arrowed to pictures on the box. 'They're all shown."

"Okay, but how does this help us?" Cassandra said.

"If theory is proving to be correct, Ms. Cillian," Jenkins added, "then we can assume that the box only shows the paintings of who is currently trapped inside the box. Since it was opened, and things most presumably escaped-"

"Then their pictures would no longer show on the box." Baird finished. They all looked at each other, astonished. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, they were moving. Cassandra, Jenkins and Flynn bolted over to the tank where the box was still rumbling, filled with godly energy yet unable to open. Baird and Ezekiel started making space on the table while Jacob moved things aside and collected pencils and papers to copy down the notes and research along with the names of whoever, or whatever, they discovered was missing.

It took them two hours. Two hours of yelling, debating, writing, translating, searching a tiny box for a single drawing that matched the book's, more yelling, some crying on Cassandra's part, and a lot of paper. Two hours later, they had a list.

"Artemis, Bia, Crius, Dionysus, Eros, the Fae, Gaia, Hercules, the Ikhthyokentauroi, Jason, Koalemos, Lelantos, Medusa, Nyx, Oneiroi, Poseidon, Qilin, Rhea, Selene, Theia, Uranus, the Valkyries, Wendigo, Xanthus, Yuxa, and the Zlatorog." Jacob read of the slip of paper where he had compiled every one of the missing deities from Pandora's Box.

"That brings the total to… twenty-six missing Greek idols." Cassandra muttered.

"Technically, several of those idols are actually Titans." Jenkins supplied. "Much more dangerous and volatile. And a few of the others are animals."

"Great. That's wonderful to hear, Jenkins." Ezekiel rolled his eyes, the snarky sarcasm coming out harsher than usual in the tense atmosphere.

"It's important to be accurate, Mr. Jones, especially now." The caretaker snapped back. "Some of these deities are incredibly powerful, and all of them are sure to be angry with being locked away for millennia."

"I've got all the notes Gregoria made in his book. It has all the research on every one of the missing idols, along with history and strengths and weaknesses. We can use it when we go after them." Jacob said, slipping the papers into an inner pocket of his jacket.

"Great. Okay, then, if we're dealing with angry gods then we need protection. Weapons. Things that could stand up against whatever energy waves they send our way." Flynn started pacing again, his eyes bright and hair wild as he got into the swing of planning. "What about-"

"Um, does anyone else see a few problems here?" Baird interrupted.

Flynn paused in his energetic movement and looked at his girlfriend and Guardian. The others, too, looked to Baird in question. The blonde ex-government agent was staring at them as if they had all forgotten something extremely important. Apparently, though, they had.

"First off, we have no idea where any of these beings have escaped to. They could anywhere in the world, causing all sorts of magical damage, and our only connection," she pointed to the clippings book, "is ruined beyond repair. And secondly, even if we had an inkling of where even one of these deities were, we have no way to capture them, let alone get them back inside the box without releasing even more gods!"

They all froze, the reality of what Baird pointed out to them hitting them slowly, then all at once with the fury of an eighteen wheeler. A flash of fear came across their faces, and Cassandra knew that they were thinking something along the lines of what she was: were they completely helpless?

"Actually," Jacob said slowly, as if only now coming to the realization, "that's not entirely true." He held up a finger to wait and ran back to his slightly dented desk in the far corner of the Annex. He rummaged around in the rubble of ceiling parts, discarded books and papers for a moment before exclaiming an excited "Yes!" and came running back to where they waited. Jacob held out something to them, something familiar.

It was a small, leather bound journal, no bigger than the palm of his hand. There was writing etched on the front cover in scrawling, elegant script that said "The Library Protects Us All." Cassandra knew this because she had one exactly like it. And so did Ezekiel.

"Our clippings books." Cassandra breathed, looking up into Jake's crystal blue eyes.

"Exactly." Jacob said, slightly breathless. "Look, the main book was destroyed, yes. But our books are intact. See?" he flipped a few of the pages, revealing the healthy tan and even a few glimpses of articles in between. "If they were connected before, wouldn't it stand to reason that our three books, combined, would give us enough information to find any major magical disturbances the loose gods might be making?"

Baird was silent, clearly thinking over what Jake had said hard. She bit her lip and sighed, her brow furrowed, as she looked over at her three charges, the Librarian himself, and Sir Galahad. After a long pause, she sighed again, heavily, and nodded.

"I guess that might work. If all three of you use your books, than we might have a chance at finding them. But how are we supposed to catch them?"

"Ah. I believe I might have the answer to that, Colonel Baird." Jenkins stepped forward, holding the old Librarian's book. "If I am deciphering this correctly, I believe that in order to get the gods back to where they came from, they must come into contact with the box itself. If I'm right, then they'll be sucked back into the box, back to Olympus, and once again trapped for eternity."

"So, what I heard was we're going to be playing a high stakes game of Pokémon Go?" Ezekiel snorted.

"I have absolutely no idea what that is." Jenkins said, stone faced.

"So we have to carry around Pandora's Box while we hunt down twenty-six Greek mythological idols?" Cassandra clarified, stunned. This was not going to be easy.

"Precisely." Jenkins walked over to the trembling box and carefully extracted it from the Plexiglas tank. As soon as it came out of range from the magical barriers, the shuddering stopped. He walked back over to their still group and handed the artifact to Cassandra, who took it from his gently.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Truthfully?" Jenkins thought about it for a moment. "Not at all. However, if it brings you any comfort whatsoever, none of you are able to open the box at any rate to add to the mess. None of you are direct descendants of Pandora, nor do any of you have the qualifications it apparently takes to be applicable for opening the artifact."

"Thank you…?" Baird said, almost as if she wasn't sure if they were supposed to be offended or not by that last statement.

"Also, as I said, the box only needs to come into contact with them. It doesn't need to be opened. They should be reverted back into their pictured state from inside the box."

"But you're not sure." Flynn finished and there was another tense moment.

"No." Jenkins said. "This is all just speculation. We are dealing with an artifact that no one has ever had this close before to study, let alone have it open. Frankly, Mr. Carson, I have no idea what you may find."

During the following moments of silence, Cassandra walked over to her battered station and opened the top drawer to the right where she kept her own personal clippings book. She hadn't touched it in a long time, not since they had officially returned. She picked it up and held it loosely against her chest. It felt like a small piece of her had returned, a piece of warmth and excitement.

Ezekiel, too, was holding his own book, though where he had been hiding his, Cassandra had no idea. She came back to where her family was standing, giving them all a small, nervous smile.

"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" Cassandra announced. "Let's get started. We've got Librarian-ing to do." Together, the three LIT's opened their books, the golden halo of light shining on each of their faces as the books lit up with new articles, cases of unexplained and uncontrolled magic.

"Alright." Baird said, a smirk playing on her lips. "Cassandra's got the box, we've got three books, and a vague, unstable plan to preventing the next apocalypse. Jenkins," she nodded at him standing by, "let's open up a door."


	3. Artemis

**A/N: I'm back, and with another chapter! I know you guys have been waiting patiently for another update, and I'm sorry it's taking so long to update. I'm not sure how I feel about this, so reviews on how it turned out would be greatly appreciated.**

 **Thanks for the favorites and reviews! Here's your reward: Chapter 3!**

 **I do not own Librarian or any historical references to Greek history or mythology. The plotline, however, is my own creative genius.**

 **Please review!**

* * *

Flynn stumbled out of the backdoor, barely straightening himself out with an air of ridiculous dignity before someone crashed into him from behind, sending him sprawling onto the concrete with a loud squawk.

"Oops. Sorry, Flynn." Cassandra's high-pitched voice came breathlessly from above him and he looked up to see her face flushing deep enough to rival her hair.

"It's alright, Cassie." Flynn said slowly, getting to his feet. He noticed that as her blush receeded, she didn't lose the look of someone caught in an extremely awkward situation-she was nervous, her hands fidgeting together and her eyes were downcast, avoiding looking at-

"Cassie? Are you alright?" Jacob Stone's quiet country voice beat him to the question, and Flynn noticed that the art historian was peering anxiously at the brilliant girl. His hand came up to rest on the small of her back, and while Cassandra didn't seem to take note, Flynn did.

"Hmm?" Cassandra blinked a few times, as if she had zoned out inside her head and was only just realizing that she had three Librarians and Guardian staring at her in concern.

"Cassandra, what's going on?" Eve stepped forward, her voice taking on that controlling protective tone that Flynn had come to associate with her job protecting the younger LIT's. He called it her Mama Bear voice. Not to her face, of course. That would be stupid, even for him. "Is it the box?"

Cassandra had been charged with holding onto Pandora's Box while they searched for the twenty six missing idols. She was keeping it in a discrete brown leather messenger bag slung across her body. Paired with her red knee socks, her blue velvet skirt, white tee shirt and grey cardigan, she almost looked like any normal girl in her early twenties. She looked like she was in college, her whole life ahead of her.

"No, it's not that." Cassadra sighed and rubbed her forehead. Flynn knew that the tumor was gone, that there was no danger, but for the last few years, it had been an innate fear that they were going to lose her to something that had no cure, and that instinctual reaction was hard to remove after so long. "It's just…look where we are."

They turned around. They had simply chosen a random page out of Stone's miniature clipping book, seeing as it was his idea to use them in the first place. A page had lit up with an article, and Jenkins had sent them straight off. They had barely even glanced at the location, so it was surprising to see that they were currently in front of Belmont Regional Hospital.

"A hospital?" Ezekiel asked, his Aussie accent laced with confusion.

"Not just any hospital." Cassandra said softly. "This is where I came for treatments for my tumor when I was a kid. I spent half my life in the emergency room and the ICU here. "

"Oh."

Flynn had no idea how to respond to that. It wasn't like he didn't know that Cassandra had had a hard childhood, seeing as she was incredibly brilliant and talented with her scientific and mathematic mind. But actually hearing her say that she had basically lived in a hospital at one point- the hospital that they were standing in now….He looked at the rest of his team, and saw similar faces. Eve and Ezekiel both were looking at the young Librarian with a mix of pity and some sort of sadness for their friend. Flynn glanced at Jacob Stone and was mildly surprised. The country boy had pulled Cassandra into a one armed hug against the side of his body and he was whispering something into her ear. Whatever it was, Cassandra smiled and looked at Jacob. Flynn shook his head and looked away.

"It's okay." Cassandra said after a moment, still looking at Stone. "I'm okay, now. Better than I was then. And this isn't about me. This is about finding whoever or whatever is causing havoc here."

"Right." Baird nodded. "What did the article say again?"

Jacob released his hold on Cassandra and reached for his clippings book in his back pocket. He flipped through it, stopping on a page about halfway through. Flynn could see a small newspaper picture of the hospital in front of them.

"According to this, recently Belmont has had some overcrowding in the Maternity Wing."

"And?" Ezekiel said. "So there are a lot of babies. Planned Parenthood isn't exactly our jurisdiction, so what's the catch?"

"The babies aren't the problem." Stone continued reading. "It's the parents. They've disappeared."

"What?" Cassandra exclaimed. "What do you mean disappeared?"

"Exactly what I said. They're gone. Mothers and fathers just-poof! After the baby is born, both parents have seemingly vanished without a trace, leaving the child in the ward."

"The idols have only been out for twenty-four hours." Cassandra stated. "We need to know how many births have happened in that time, and then we can figure out roughly how many parents have disappeared under magical circumstances."

"Alright. Let's go in." Flynn nodded affirmatively, pivoting to face the entrance to the hospital and marching to the front doors, his team right behind him.

Inside, it smelled like antiseptic and plastic. The waiting room was nearly empty, and the tile floors and fluorescent lights gave off a piercing white-yellow glow that made their eyes squint and blink. Flynn swallowed, trying to ignore the smell of metal and taste of copper that was permeating his senses and walked casually up to the front desk where a portly Asian nurse was sitting, her dark hair piled into a messy bun atop her head, her focus on the computer in front of her.

"Can I help you?" she said slowly as Flynn approached, her eyes never leaving the computer screen.

"Uh…yes. Yes, in fact, you can help us. We are the Librarians." Flynn said, and as the woman turned to face him, he sent her a rather charming smile.

He always loved the effect the words had on the unsuspecting people he needed to get around. Flynn could always feel the magic spring from his lips, circling the ver words he spoke, and touching the other person. He watched as the nurse's eyes cleared for a moment, blinked as they became vacant for less than an instant, and suddenly she was back, this time with a wide pearly smile and a false understanding.

"You must be the group doing the statistical study of our patient docket." She stood, and Flynn saw that her nametag read Carlotta. "Of course, how silly of me. What is it that you want to see first? Anything in particular?"

"We're actually very interested in your Maternity Wards and the rapid succession of birth rates." Cassandra stepped forward, and Flynn was surprised to see a notebook and pen held at the ready in her hands. She was really selling the part.

"Oh." Carlotta blinked again. "Well, follow me, dearies. I can take you up that way and show you around. Though, it's not the most heartwarming spot at the moment."

"Why is that?" Eve asked. She was walking near the back of the group, her eyes scanning for any possible threats or signs of dangerous disturbances.

"Well, to be perfectly honest, it wasn't this bad until very early this morning. The labor wards are often busy, dear, you should know. Lots of babies coming into our care at every time of the day. Most will go home with their families, but some we know go into the adoption system for one reason or another. But that is few and far between here. Or it was." Carlotta spoke with fervor, and there was a tinge of bitterness when she finished.

"What do you mean?" Eve asked again.

"Well, we've had maybe ten births this last day here, ma'am. Ten beautiful babies were born in the last day. Ten lives that were brought into this world, and-" she stopped walking abruptly and turned to face them all. There was a crease of worry between her brows. "Now, I don't like to assume things about people, especially young couples who have started to make a family for themselves. But out of those ten children, there were four who…."she stopped again and shook her head. "I better let Diana explain it. She's our new Maternity Ward nurse."

Carlotta led the way down another brightly lit hallway, and then up a few flights of stairs until they reached the fifth floor. As she opened the door to the main part of the floor, Flynn noticed again how there didn't seem to be anyone there, or rather, anyone with purpose. It was quiet-no sirens, no alarms, no patients yelling or visitors calling or talking, no nurses or doctors yelling out orders or calling codes. Everyone seemed to be content with the peace and simply…. set up.

The portly nurse led them down another few hallways until they finally reached a large plate glass window. It opened to show a large comfortable room where there were several rows of hospital bassinets on carriages. In each one was a sleeping, squirming bundle of either pink or blue.

"Wow." Stone said softly, and they all looked at him in surprise. He noticed and flushed a little, but stood his ground and shrugged. "What? I got a lot of family, and that means a lot of nieces and nephews. Babies ain't so bad when they're like this, all sleepy and quiet. They're pretty cute."

"Ugh." Cassandra grunted, and Stone smirked. "I mean, sure, but what about when they wake up and start to cry and mess and grab with their grubby little fingers and the drool that just-it goes everywhere!"

There was a melodic laugh from behind them and the group of five turned to see a rather pretty young woman standing a few feet away from them. She was tall with light brown skin and dark almond eyes, her black hair curled to around her shoulders.

"That's part of being a new child." The woman stepped towards them. "I'm Diana, the nurse on this floor. Carlotta told me you were here to do a statistics study?"

"We're the Librarians." Flynn said deliberately, and he waited to see the magic do it's part.

Diana's eyes narrowed, her pupils darkening with a sort of intense fury that Flynn nearly took a step back. In that brief second, something had changed. Diana hadn't looked…quite right. Flynn felt the others shift behind him, and he knew that they had somehow sensed it too.

"Alright, then." She smiled, her eyes kind, but Flynn couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness. "What is it that you would like to know?"

"Carlotta mentioned something about four of the newborns. What happened?" Cassandra said quickly.

"It was rather strange, and sad, really." Diana spoke softly. "Those baby girls are beautiful and strong. There they are, there." She pointed through the window at a row near the back. All lined up, there were four pink blankets in one long carriage, each baby inside asleep with a look of pure innocence and peace. "Leto, Siletta, Telia, and Monona."

"Those are…" Flynn trailed off, not sure that he should mention the oddity of the names chosen. "nice names. The parents are certainly creative."

'They did not name their daughters. I did." Diana didn't look at them. She was fixated on the girls. "They were young couples. They were married young-hardly consenting adults and they were too emotional. And now they are gone, leaving the babies to find strength with someone worthy of raising them to the right path."

Flynn glanced back at the others, and they all shared a look. Something was not right about this woman. But there was indeed a huge difference between being a little off and being an angry magical deity. There was nothing to connect. Diana continued to stare into the room.

"Diana," Cassandra stepped slowly up to the woman. The nurse blinked and looked down at Cassie, almost as if she didn't remember that she had been there. It was not a friendly look. "I was wondering if you could show us where the birthing rooms are? Where the parents had disappeared?"

The nurse's eyes narrowed again, and Flynn narrowed his in return. Stone took a step forward, moving to stand behind Cassandra and Flynn noticed how protective his stance really was. Diana seemed to notice this as well because her face hardned significantly before she nodded approval.

"I will take you, miss, and you," she motioned to Baird, "but you three men will wait here."

"Why-" Ezekiel started but Baird stepped on his foot quickly silencing the thief.

"Okay. Lead the way."

Diana set off down the hallway, with Cassandra and Eve hurrying after her. Flynn watched them reach the end of the corridor where Diana led them into a side examination room and shut the door.

"Was it just me or was she really weird?" Ezekiel muttered.

"I don't like it, Flynn. Not Carlotta, not Diana, and especially not the girls just going off to be alone with her." Stone snarled, his eyes still focused down the hallway.

"It's all of it. This hospital. We are certainly at the center point for one of the gods." Flynn said, rubbing his chin in thought. "But which one? Stone, what do Gregoria's notes say about the Gods?"

"I'm going to need something specific to narrow the search down, Flynn. We're dealing with one out of a possible twenty-six. I need a place to start." Stone reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out some folded papers-the previous Librarian's notes on Pandora's Box.

"Okay, okay. Let's see, it's probably going to be a Goddess, seeing as we're dealing with babies in a Maternity Ward. Gods wouldn't concern themselves with children normally, seeing as even in mythology, the Goddesses were more loving to the offspring." Flynn started rambling, pacing back and forth in front of the window.

"Goddesses only. Got it. That narrows it down to….nine possibilities. " Stone checked down his list. "Hold on…"

"It's got to be someone who's interest is in children or childbirth. I don't know what it is about parents but it has to have something to do with the babies as their main concern." Flynn continued.

"Names!" Ezekiel exclaimed and the man Librarian looked at the thief in surprise.

"What?" Flynn asked.

"Names." Jones motioned over to where the four girls were. "Think about it. The box was opened because a girl had the name of the ancestor right?"

"Sort of." Stone snapped. "That was part of it. Her name being Pandora Sideri was only a fraction of the reason why-"

"Whatever, but it was still part of the reason." Ezekiel interrupted, and Flynn could almost see the gears in that sly brain start to turn. "What I mean is, names are very important. It's our definition, and our disguise. The baby girls, there, are named Leto, Siletta, Telia, and Monona. That has to mean something somewhere."

"Jones is right." Stone said, sounding rather surprised. Flynn had to admit he was also a little stunned at the rational thought that had come out of the reckless kid's mouth. "There is something. The names themselves are strange, but the first one, Leto, is the only one with a connection to Greek mythology."

"Who is she? One of the idols?" Ezekiel said. Flynn looked back into the baby room, where the first little girl in pink was sleeping. If that was the deity, this was about to get a lot more ethically complicated.

"No. Leto is mentioned as a background note for one of the other goddesses. Leto was married to Zeus, and while they had many children together, only one escaped from the box. Artemis." Jacob Stone raised his eyes from his papers and looked at Flynn.

"Artemis." Flynn mused. "Yes, she does fit. I mean, she was widely considered the protector of childbirth after she helped her own mother birth her twin brother. She values chastity and virginity."

"But why would she attack here? Why take the parents and leave the babies?" Ezekiel asked.

"Artemis rejected marriage and love, for the sole reason that the only God she ever loved, Orion, was killed." Flynn said, but he frowned. "Something's not adding up. Even with all her interests here, that doesn't explain anything. Why these babaies? Why those parents? Diana said-"

"Flynn!" Stone stopped him, his eyes wide as he stared at something in the notes. "I can't believe it. Jones was right."

"As always." Ezekiel smirked before looking at his friend in confusion. "But, um, what exactly was I right about this time?"

"The names are significant, but not just the babies." Stone pointed to the text he was reading. "Look. Gregoria made notes about how every other god and goddess seemed to have alternate names, ones that they used when they would leave Olympus and spend days wandering among the mortals of Earth."

"Common names to disguise themselves. Of course. That's how we can find them. They won't know that times have changed, that they've been studied so explicitly. What's Artemis's mortal name?"

"Diana."

It took less than a second for that information to register and for the three Librarians to bolt down the hallway and down to the door where the three women had gone minutes before. Flynn threw the door open and ran inside, stopping short at the sight.

The room was empty off all equipment and furniture. Instead, there were bubbles of magical barriers separating eight people around the room. On one side, four men, and on the other, four women, each of who looked extremely weak. There was something inside the bubbles, something white and flickering, as Flynn watched as the women slowly sank to the ground, their bodies tired and lank. The men, too, were being affected, but they seemed to be growing rigid, and their faces showed anger and fear.

"I think we've found the parents." Stone whispered.

"What's happening to them?" Ezekiel asked.

"I don't know, but it's not good." Flynn said.

"Guys!"

Cassandra's yell drew their attention away from the trapped people and to where they saw their friends standing behind their own wall. In front of their barrier stood Diana, but she was different. She was no longer wearing her nurse's uniform, but instead it was as if she was cloaked in a piece of the earth-it was dark brown and circled around her form, not exactly touching her, but protecting her. It was like armor, with hints of metal guards around her arms and legs, and a circlet of thorns on either side of her head.

"Artemis." Flynn called out and saw the look of surprise flash across Baird and Cassandra's face.

"Librarian." Artemis's voice was clear and cut, yet it was still gentle. Even so, Flynn felt a compelling force capture his attention and he could not look away from this being of intense power. "You should not have meddled in my affairs."

"Why are you doing this to these people?" Flynn spoke again, and he found that it was becoming hard to move. "They have done nothing wrong. They just had a baby. They were starting a family."

"These women are weak. They have let those vermin take advantage of them, so they are no longer fit to hold their child. They were not strong enough to withstand the births, and thus, they must be diminished." As she spoke, she moved her gaze over to the eight frightened people. The women's bubbles shuddered and they let out weakened gasps. One of the men yelled out his wife's name and suddenly he was thrown back again the cement wall.

"Stop!" Cassandra yelled out.

"I will not. This is my duty. It is my nature."

"Maybe it was. Once." Stone spoke up, and Artemis set her dark gaze on him. "But not now. You've been trapped in that box for so long. But it is a different time. Those men…they did not take advantage of their wives. They love them. Sure they're young…but they're in love. And love makes you emotional and you make stupid decisions but one of those decisions lead to one of those little girls out there."

"Love is useless." Artemis spat angrily.

"You loved once, though." Stone did not relent. "Orion. You loved him, and he loved you, and when he was killed you thought that it hurt so badly because you were weak. That the pain made you weak."

"You don't know anything about me." The goddess said, but there was a note of panic in her voice.

"I know everything, Artemis. I told you, it's a different time. " Stone shook his head. Like Flynn, it looked like he was frozen in place. But he kept talking. "We know things. We know your history. I know you are the daughter of Leto and Zeus. You helped your own mother birth your twin brother. You stand for chastity and virginity and against the rape of women and all those who don't consent. You are good."

"Enough of this." Artemis screamed and the walls around them shook with the power of her sound. "These women are weak. These men are monsters. Those children need me."

"No, they don't." This time it was Cassandra who spoke. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper. "They need their parents, Diana."

"Pain doesn't make you weak." Stone finished. "It makes you strong. When you survive, you are strong. "

Artemis trembled where she stood, and the only sounds were the whisper of the magic barriers, the women crying and the gasps of the men as they continued to freeze in place. There was a collective sigh of wind, all at once, and suddenly, Artemis collapsed to her knees, her body shaking with suppressed grief and anger. As soon as she was on the ground, the barriers and forces holding them in place shattered and they were released. In a flash, Cassandra leapt forward, the box already in her hands. She knelt beside the grieving immortal and slowly reached the box out to touch her. In an instant, there was a shimmer of light, then a flash, and Artemis was gone.

"Natalie! Are you alright?"

"Christina!"

"Evangeline!"

"Tori!"

The husbands staggered over to where their wives were collapsed, the sounds of their sobs nearly a relief in the aftermath. Quickly, Flynn and the other boys hurried to where their girls still stood.

"Eve!" Flynn reached out and pulled his Guardian girlfriend into a tight hug, which she returned with a huff of laughter. Pulling away, Flynn noticed that Stone was once again standing close to Cassandra, his head bent towards hers.

"What happened?"

"The second Diana-or Artemis, I guess, brought us in here, she revealed herself and what she had been doing." Cassandra explained. "I tried to pull out the box but she shut us in our own cage and said that she was protecting us. But I don't know for what. Neither of us are mothers, and how could she have known you and Eve were together?"

 _She saw how I looked at her._ Flynn thought. _And she saw how protective Stone was of Cassie._ But he kept that to himself, and instead he simply shrugged.

"What's important is that we stopped her. One down, twenty-five to go!"

"Don't remind me." Eve groaned as they started to make their way out the door. "We should probably go find Carlotta, let her know that…well, that those four girls have their mommies and daddies after all."

"I love happy endings." Cassandra sighed. "By the way, how did you guys figure all that out? With who Diana really was and all that?"

"Ezekiel Jones saved the day, of course!" Jones's arrogant Australian accent cut in and Flynn smiled as he heard Stone growl out a cutting reply. He glanced over at Eve and caught her grinning as well.

Yes, he certainly did like happy endings, however short lived they tended to be.

* * *

 **Please review!**


	4. Bia

**A/N: I've been working hard on this one. This story requires a lot of research, so that means it requires a lot of my time when I really should be doing my homework. But this is much more fun.**

 **I do not own Librarians nor do I own any of the Greek myths or history mentioned in this story. The plot is my own idea.**

 **Please review!**

* * *

"What's taking so long?" Cassandra whined, her voice reflecting the evident frustration of the last two days very clearly, not to mention the sleep deprivation.

They were back in the Annex, Pandora's Box safely trapped in the magic capsule, and they were all gathered around the center table. Cassandra, Jacob and Ezekiel had placed their three pocket clippings book in the center and they were studying them intensely. They had captured Artemis almost twelve hours ago now, and since then there hadn't been so much as a vibration or glimmer from any of the books.

"You know what they say, Ms. Cillian." Jenkins called out to her as he descended the stairs. "A watched pot never boils. The five of you – stop staring at the poor things and let them do their jobs."

"Jenkins, there are twenty-five missing immortals loose somewhere on Earth. " Baird said with no small amount of anger. "We cannot be caught unaware like last time. The sooner we have an idea of the next location – "

"The sooner I can determine who or what it is." Jacob finished confidently. Cassandra couldn't help but smile a little as she watched him discretely. He was so much different than the Oklahoma boy she had met four years ago. There was an air of newfound confidence to him – a confidence in his abilities and a trust at being respected, listened to. She could relate.

"And we can make an actual game plan." Ezekiel broke into her thoughts of Jacob Stone and Cassandra blinked a little to refocus. She saw Jacob glancing at her and she flushed slightly. She knew he was probably worried about her, seeing as the last case hit a little too close to home for her. He had been sweet – holding her close, but not tightly, telling her to prove them all wrong, show them, even just a little, that she was stronger than they ever knew.

And then Carlotta, who had been her ICU attendant, she hadn't even recognized her, and she had felt relieved, but also disappointed because she wished she could say something, anything. Cassandra remembered how Jacob had run to her after Artemis released them – he had asked if she was alright, congratulated her on securing Artemis, and she had wanted to tell him that he was the one who saved them, but all she did was hug him back.

"We can't do nothing." Cassandra sighed, looking back at the three silent books in front of her.

"No," Flynn said. "Jenkins is right. Staring doesn't do anyone any good. Good things come to those who-"

"Got it!" Ezekiel shouted, and everyone watched as one of the books started to glow a little, vibrating in place with the force of the new article. The thief reached forward, nicking his book up off the middle and opened it to the glowing page with a smug superiority.

"What is it? Where?" Baird said quickly as Ezekiel skimmed the pages quickly, his eyes darting excitedly over the article.

"Ooh, Hawaii! Score! The beaches there are amazing, and not to mention the girls." The thief gave a sly grin to the rest of his companions. "Maybe we can get in a little vacation time."

"Jones!" Jacob snapped, snatching the book away from him. "Are you serious? This isn't a joke. Forget the beaches, okay? Geez-"

"Hey, is it so bad to be wishing we got a little time to ourselves now and then?" Ezekiel huffed. " Besides, Hawaii is paradise for everyone. Shooting ranges for Baird, there's some history type boring stuff for Flynn, Cass, and Galahad here, and the beaches for my gorgeous self. And Stone could punch out a shark or something."

"You know what, Jones? No." Jacob paused for a minute, as if considering the possibilities of Hawaii before shaking his head. "No. Just -no. We have a job to do, okay? So can we…. please?" Cassandra giggled a little at the expression on Jacob's face – exasperation and utter annoyance – but she schooled her features into a serious look when he sent a light glare her way.

"Stone. What does it say?" Baird asked again.

"It is in Hawaii." Jacob read. "There's been some increased activity with some of their natural disaster warnings. Impending tsunami on Oahu, huge earthquake scares in Honolulu, and some of the dormant volcanoes have shown signs of waking up and becoming fully active again."

"You said these were warnings?" Cassandra asked. "Not that they already happened?"

"Good. This means that they are potential magical disasters. If we can figure this out, you may be able to stop it in time." Jenkins said, but Flynn was already shaking his head angrily.

"At the very least, we stop it before too much damage is caused." He said bitterly. "But we don't know who we're dealing with. This could be a separate problem. The books are still picking up the regular magical issues, not just this new chaos."

"Three major natural disasters potentially occurring in one place on the same day, and not two days after Pandora's Box was opened cannot be construed as coincidence, Flynn." Cassandra cut in, her own annoyance and lack of sleep making her snappish again.

"And I can narrow down our search, okay, just give me a second." Jacob was already going through his stack of notes. "This ain't our first rodeo. We're not totally blind, so just step back."

"Stone, I-" Flynn started but was cut off by Baird's elbow jutting into his chest.

"Enough. We're all tired. We're all scared. I promise, we'll take some time between idols to rest, but that is not now. So can we all," she glared at Flynn and Ezekiel, "play nice here and focus!"

There was silence as Jacob continued translating the notes. Flynn huffed and stormed off to his desk, and, sharing similar looks of frustration, Baird and Jenkins followed him. Ezekiel wisely chose to step away and that just left Cassandra standing with Jacob Stone.

"Is…." Cassandra cleared her throat awkwardly. "Is there anything I can do to help? Jake?"

Jacob sighed, not looking away from his papers. Cassandra noticed that there was still some dried blood up near his temple, mixed in with his hair, and his breathing seemed heavier than it had earlier, far more labored than normal. They hadn't really had time to assess themselves for injuries after the initial shock of the box opening other than a quick cleanup and a once over for anything potentially life-threatening. Surprisingly, they had all been relatively fine – but, Cassandra thought, maybe Jacob wasn't as fine as he had assured. Or rather, it was catching up to him now that the adrenalin of earlier wore off.

"Jake, are you okay? You don't look so good."

"Cassie," Jake sighed again, heavily and with some obvious effort, "I'm sorry, darling, but I'm trying to concentrate. I – I'm fine, just a little tired and sore, that's all. Promise."

"Stone, I know you're hurt." Cassandra said coolly. "You've still got blood in your hair, and you're holding your chest in an upright position, which means you probably cracked a few ribs, and you know no doubt have a concussion from hitting your head so hard. I recognize the signs from what you taught me." Her irritation gave way to the worry that she was trying to mask. Jake looked at her, half amused.

"Cassie – "

"No, Jacob. I get it that you're tough and brave with your fighting skills and loyalty and selflessness and all that and I love you for being you, but that doesn't give you the excuse to me a martyr!"

"Be a…" Jacob blinked at her with a somewhat amazed expression. Suddenly it was as if something switched on and he lit up like the Vatican. "Cassandra, that's it! You're a genius _ I could kiss you right now – where is it – " He dove back into his papers with renewed fervor, drawing back the others attention.

"Yes, I know – wait, what?" Cassandra nearly jumped at his energy, watching as he translated as fast as he could. In her mind she was backtracking the words she could have sworn he had just said….but he was excited and sleep deprived….Cassandra shook her head with the smallest amount of hurt.

"Stone, you find something?" Baird asked.

"Yes. Maybe. I don't know. It's worth a shot." Jacob fumbled a few more papers before finally pulling one out. There was a lot of small cramped cursive sketching out all across the page. The tiny script was hard for even Cassandra to read – and that wasn't even counting the fact that it was Latin.

"It's not a God, or even a Goddess." Jacob explained. "I think we're dealing with one of the Titans."

"Okay…" Ezekiel drawled. "What exactly is a Titan?"

"Titans were considered to be the older generation of Gods, and they ruled for many millennia until the younger Gods, the Olympians, came up to Olympus and challenged the Titans for the right to reign over the universe and to reside on Olympus. Few Titans actually sided with Zeus, and thus the Olympians won the war and banished the Titans."

"So which of the Titans are we dealing with?" Jenkins said once Jacob had finished.

"Bia." Jake pointed again to his flurried notations. "Meaning violence. She's the Titan daughter of Pallas – the Titan God of War craft – and Styx – a deity and river dividing the Earth from the Underworld. She's the personification of force and raw energy."

"Certainly capable of mass destruction," Flynn said shortly. "And quite possibly a lot harder to reason with."

"Oh she's hard to reason with." Jenkins snorted, peering over Jacob's shoulder. "Bia, unlike her siblings, does not speak. In fact, she is considered the most volatile Goddesses ever in existence, and definitely the most volatile Titan."

"Wonderful." Ezekiel rolled his eyes. "Of course we'd get stuck going after the God that can kill us."

"They can all kill us, Jones." Baird said slowly. "Rather easily. We were lucky with Artemis – I mean she was distracted by her purpose and a completely different world. She hadn't been out for very long."

"But the others have been out for almost three days now." Jacob said ominously. "Who knows how long it will be until we catch them all? And I know most of them are going to enjoy their freedom, and we won't know about it until it's too late."

"First let's tackle Bia. We'll deal with the others and the consequences of their actions later. It's all we can do." Baird ordered. "Let's split up. We can cover all the possible attack sites and warning stations and check to see if any of the data overlaps."

"Great. I'll take Cassie and we'll head off to the volcano sites and check it out. Talk to some of the scientists and call you if we find anything that could connect us to Bia." Jacob said, and Cassandra nodded. She couldn't help the small grin that crept up, or the giddy feeling of elation she got when he had immediately claimed her as his partner, or the rush of warmth she got as he placed a hand on her lower back.

"Okay." Baird's face was impassive, but Cassandra could have sworn the ex-NATO colonel had sent her a smirk and a wink, which was totally unprofessional and not very Baird-like. "Flynn and I will work the tsunami warnings in Oahu and Jones-"

"Honolulu, yes. Got it." Ezekiel Jones smiled, charming and all teeth and very insincere.

"You," Baird glared, "will go with Jenkins to investigate the earthquakes. Yes, Jenkins, you." she said to the pouting knight. "I need all hands on deck for this one, and that means you get field time. Besides, you could use some sun."

Jenkins let out a deep groan, and Cassandra thought he was going to protest a lot more, but he simply moved over to the backdoor and begin to spin the globe to the right destinations.

"Fine. Mr. Stone, Ms. Cillian, you first." The door began to glow a whitish-blue, and Cassandra jumped a little in place to prepare to throw herself across the world in a second. Jacob rolled his shoulders back and cracked his neck, and he got that look in his eyes like just before he launched into an all-out bar brawl. As the doors opened, Jacob caught her by surprise and reached back to grab her hand, pulling her forward to stand next to him. She felt her face flush as he intertwined their fingers, but she made no move to pull away. Cassandra didn't have a whole lot of time to revel in the feeling of his calloused palm pressed against her slender hand because in the next moment, he was tugging her to Hawaii.

* * *

Two hours later, Cassandra and Jacob were leaving the District Warning Center, after conversing with the leading thermal scientists, and heading back into the local Hawaiian village.

"This is not good." Cassandra said as she and Jacob walked alongside each other, looking every bit tourists.

"Yep." Jacob said curtly, his eyes darting from side to side.

They had gotten the necessary data from the thermal imaging and the signatures and all the signs from the warning center. The problem was that it made no sense. If they were reading it right, and it wasn't a mistake, then everyone living on every island in Hawaii was in serious trouble.

'The number are clearly showing an increase in heat activity, and the thermals are proving that the dormant volcanoes are waking up again, but all of them at once? And at this level of heat?" Cassandra continued, a small hint of panic creeping into her voice that she had been trying to hide for the last two hours.

"The whole island will be wiped out." Jacob confirmed, and he pulled Cassandra over to the side of where they were standing – between a surf shop and a shave ice stand. When she turned to face him, Cassandra was taken aback by the intensity of the emotion she saw. Jacob had never looked at her that way before, and it sent the butterflies in her stomach cartwheeling.

"Cassie," Jacob started, his voice low, "this whole thing could go very wrong, very fast. We've never handled anything like this before. Please let me finish." He held up a hand to silence her as she opened her mouth to speak. "Cassandra….I…I know we've dealt with the equivalaent of the end of the world almost four times now, but this is so much more…deadly than anything else we've done, and I can't hope to finish this insane quest to find the final twenty-five when there is a possibility we die today, or tomorrow or the next day."

"There's always a chance we'll die." Cassandra whispered.

"But the stakes have never been higher than now." Jacob protested. "Cassie, please listen. Lately, I've noticed that my feelings….my feelings for you, have changed. We've become – good friends, I think, very close friends. The thing is….I think I'm starting to – "

"We need to call Baird." Cassandra exclaimed, completely cutting him off. She felt too flushed, too flustered and exposed all of a sudden, and while she desperately wanted to hear what Jacob had to say, suddenly it became all to real that maybe he actually liked her in that way, and Cassandra had found herself hyperventilating and the words that came out of her mouth shut him up immediately. There was a flicker of hurt in Jacob's eyes before it cooled over and he pulled out his cellphone.

"Jake?" Cassandra whispered as he punched in Baird's number. " I think I'm starting to, too."

As he hit the last number, Jacob looked up at her in surprise. Cassandra hoped she had guessed correctly with what he had been about to say. If not, she had royally screwed up.

"Cassie, really? You – you love –"

"Stone. Cassandra." Baird's comforting, authoritative voice came out of the tinny speaker, and thoroughly interrupting their moment. Cassandra nearly cursed. " Good. We were just about to call. Jones and Ezekiel have already finished and are with us at the tsunami center. What have you guys got? "

"This is bad, Eve. Really bad. Like an entire island is in danger of being wiped out by impending waves of lava – bad." Cassandra said, glancing up at Stone worriedly. There was a sigh on the other line.

"That's what we were afraid of. Jenkins and Jones found similar outcomes with the earthquakes."

"Meaning?"

"Think of sinkholes large enough to swallow Asia." Ezekiel's called out to them distantly on the other line.

"And tsunami's large enough to completely submerge the entire state – meaning every single island." Flynn added.

"Wait, guys, we're missing something here." Cassandra raised her hands in a placating motion, even though it was only her and Jacob.

"Yeah, but what?"

"The three points of the disasters are like plot points on a map." Cassandra thought aloud, her mind traveling at a hundred miles an hour as she sorted through every facet of information they had gathered. "When spread out on a physical map, they make a triangle. An isosceles triangle, to be exact, thought I don't think that's relevant."

"Cassandra. Your point?" Baird snapped.

"Right." Cassandra felt her face flush, but she continued. "These points cannot be coincidence. We know that the beings have great magical power, but just exactly how much could they have if they've been trapped in a box since before time? She'd have to regenerate. I mean, Artemis wasn't all that powerful in the hospital, and we just assumed that she was distracted. But what if she didn't have her full power?"

"I see where you're going with this, Ms. Cillian." Jenkins called through the line. "If the immortals are still weak and haven't yet regained their full strength, then they would need a powerful magic source."

"Are you saying that there's another artifact out there?" Jacob asked, and Cassandra blanched as she and Jacob shared a look. If there was another all powerful artifact that was in the hands of a powerfully violent Titan –

"Not necessarily. With the return of magic in the world, and the sheer force of the immortals, all they would need to regenerate themselves while they regain strength would be a central outlet of lay lines." Jenkins explained.

"So where is there a central outlet in Hawaii with connections to all three disaster sites?" Flynn asked.

"Already on it." Cassandra said, and in an instant, the map that was always inside her head was in front of her eyes, and she followed the floating lines and digits carefully and quickly as she tried to decipher the geographic magic lines.

"Did you really memorize the entire global magic map?" Jacob said softly, with no small amount of amazement.

"Guys. Anything? We're running out of time." Baird called out again.

"Got it!" Cassandra snapped her mental map off and turned back to Jake. "If Bia really is using a magical conductor through the lay lines, then she would have to be central to the three points of disaster since that's as far as the magic influence would reach. According to the map, the best point of lay line cross over would be in the lower level of the sub-central power system."

"Seriously?" Ezekiel said, and Cassandra could just picture him moaning and groaning. There was a sharp cracking sound, and a loud "Ow!" and Cassandra figured that Baird had just smacked the Aussie thief upside the head.

"Alright. Text the coordinates and we'll meet up with you there. Jenkins! Let's fire up a backdoor!" Baird confirmed and ended the call.

"Ready?" Stone looked over at her, and Cassandra felt a pang of disappointment. Had he really dismissed their earlier talk juts like that. Before she could say anything, however, Jacob reached over and took her hand. "Don't worry. We'll continue our talk later. Right now, we have a Titan to capture."

"Right. Yes." Cassandra blushed. "Let's go."

* * *

"Are you sure this is the right place" Baird whispered.

"Positive. The lay lines cross directly over this position. There's no greater source of magical influence on the entire island. She has to be here." Cassandra whispered back.

The four Librarians, their Guardian, and their reluctant Sir Galahad were creeping slowly through the lower sub-basement of a recently shut down power outlet facility on the main island of Oahu. According to Cassandra's calculations, this would be the ideal spot for any magical power to locate themselves and have access to the lay lines.

"We're almost at the end of the blueprints." Ezekiel whined. He had managed to snag an actual printout of the building (they had learned not to ask too many question by now) and he was guiding them down the proper channels. "If Bia is down here, then she has got to me around this –"

"LOOK OUT!" Flynn yelled, and all of a sudden, there was a gigantic vibration shaking through the floor, and Cassandra found herself being thrown to the floor. Above their head, the ceiling crumbled and bits and pieces of stone rained down on their heads. After a few seconds, things slowed down, and Cassandra braved looking up.

"What was that?" Baird groaned, getting up from the floor. She was answered by a low grumbling sound from directly behind them. Slowly, Cassandra turned around.

It was not what Cassandra was expecting. When she first heard of Bia, and the fact that this Titan was the personification of absolute raw force and energy, for some reason, Cassandra pictured a large stone giant, entirely made out of boulders and rubble and debris. Something that looked capable of mass destruction. What she saw now was a young woman, barely in her twenties, with dark hair piled high on top of her head. She was wearing a dark green tunic over a long flowing black skirt. Her skin was pale and her eyes were a burning red. In her hand she carried a bent golden rod, and on her back were two bent golden wings, attached to her by a collar around her neck. She was floating only a few inches off the ground, and staring at them furiously.

"Bia." Jacob murmured. "It's really her."

"Okay, now what?" Ezekiel said. "You told us that she doesn't speak. How are we supposed to reason with something that can't reason back?"

Another rumble shook the building and Cassandra saw Bia's eyes flare angrily in response to Ezekiel's words.

"She may not be able to verbalize, Jones, but she can understand us." Cassandra snapped. A pleased sort of look crossed over the Titan woman's face and Cassandra had an idea. "Now shut up, Jones, and stay back."

A softer rumble was sent out, and Cassandra saw the woman smile. She was laughing. Cassandra joined her timidly and took a step forward. Immediately, Bia shot a few feet backwards, here eyes distrusting.

'Cassie, what are you doing?" Stone hissed.

"Trust me!"

Cassandra took another step forward, her hands up in a show that she had nothing in them. She felt the heat of Pandora's Box on her leg where it rested in her satchel.

"Bia." Cassandra spoke. "I know that's who you are. I've studied you. I know where you've come from. I know your story."

Bia furrowed her brow in obvious distrust, but she didn't move back as Cassandra got closer.

"I know you are the daughter of Pallas and Styx. You have three siblings, Nike and Kratos and Zelus. I know you are a Titan, and one of the original Gods of the universe, long before the Olympians ever came upon the high mountain of Olympus." Cassandra didn't know why she was speaking so eloquently, almost like how Jacob would speak. But it seemed to be working. It was obvious that Bia was intrigued at the knowledge that Cassandra had.

" I know that you fought alongside Zeus when the Olympians challenged you for Olympus, and when Zeus won, he granted you the reward not to be banished alongside the other Titans." Cassandra took a chance and slowly, she reached into her bag and pulled out Pandora's Box. Bia let out a vicious hiss and rose further away. The building around them shook violently.

"Cassandra, what are you doing?"

"Miss Cillian, put that thing away! She clearly does not appreciate the sight of it!"

"Trust me!" Cassandra yelled. "Bia! Listen to me! Zeus is here. He's here. Right here."

Bia paused in her riotous shaking, and looked down at Cassandra. The anger was still evident in her eyes, but so was the concern. Any thought Cassandra had of reasoning with the Titan woman left her mind when she looked into her eyes. This was someone who would not listen to reason, only apparent flattery and the reason of war and violence. There was no simple logic, only creative strategy – that's it!

"Zeus is here. Only I can't release him. I can't. I don't have the power." Cassandra took a breath. "But you do. You have it, Bia. I know we cannot win against you in a fight, so we are here to surrender this to you. All you have to do is touch the lid, and Zeus will be free, and forever indebted to you."

As she spoke, Bia floated closer and closer back to the ground until she was standing right in front of Cassandra. The tremors had stopped, and now the Titan was looking at Pandora's Box with clear longing and greed. Cassandra held it out, holding her breath desperately. Finally, after a long pause, Bia reached out and touched the tip of her finger to the lid.

There was a furious flash of bright, hot light and suddenly – Bia was gone. She was sucked back into the Box. Quickly, Cassandra raised it to her eyes, scanning every side until she found what she was looking for: an angry looking woman wearing a green tunic, holding a long golden rod painted on the side of the box, painted lines of energy circling around her.

"Gotcha." Cassandra whispered.


	5. Crius

**A/N: Anyway, I just got back from a school trip so I am extremely tired, but I am going to write this anyway. If you want, you could write a review as a thank you.**

 **I promise that there will be chapters featuring Baird as a complete military badass, but that is not this chapter. It will come, do not worry! I love her as much as the rest of them, but this one ended up being different than originally intended.**

 **I do not own Librarians or Greek mythology.**

* * *

"Cassandra, that was brilliant!" Baird exclaimed as they tumbled through the back door into the Annex. "How did you know Bia would fall for that? Touching the box herself?"

Cassandra blushed and looked down at the box still in her hands. Despite working together for four years now, she still got a little flustered every time they praised her, and her mind. She couldn't help it – a part of her was still that little girl at the science fair, eager to please everyone around her.

"Well, I figured that Ezekiel was right –or at least, partially." Cassandra started.

"Right again? Ha!" Ezekiel whooped gleefully. "That's two for two, baby! I am on fire – hey!" Baird had ripped a long piece of duct tape off a roll on the center table and slapped it across the thief's mouth.

"There you are, Jones. Courtesy of the Library." Baird smirked while the rest of them laughed at the utterly stunned expression on his face.

"Anyway…" Cassandra continued, still grinning, "I realized that Jones was right when he said that Bia couldn't be reasoned with. She was too angry, too focused on destruction. However, I saw that she enjoyed it when I was berating Ezekiel. She was pleased with the anger, annoyance, and fear we displayed within our group – the emotional instability. Bia wouldn't have listened to us – but Jacob told us about someone she would."

"Me?" Jacob looked mildly surprised. "But who – oh. Zeus, the Olympian she sided with in the war against Titans."

"Exactly." Cassandra nodded. "She would have only listened to him, and since we can't get him out of the box, we had to have her choose to go to him, but with the thinking that she would remain where she was. I took a shot in the dark, I guess."

"And you hit your mark." Baird smiled proudly. Cassandra beamed. There was a sticky peeling noise and a loud yelp, and Cassandra looked to see Ezekiel rubbing his mouth gingerly with one hand, the long strip of duct tape in the other.

"Ooh." Jacob hissed, but he was smirking at the younger man nonetheless.

"Okay, enough laughing at Ezekiel's expense." Flynn clapped his hands together. "We'll have time for that later."

"Hey!" Ezekiel whined, but he followed the rest of them to the center table anyways. Their three miniature clippings books were laid out in a line, silent. Cassandra snuck a glance at Jacob, and was surprised to find him staring back at her. They both flushed and looked away, but Cassandra couldn't quite quell the loopy little grin that stretched across her face.

"We have two down, and twenty-four left to find." Flynn stated.

"But without a clue from these books, we have nothing to go on. We're completely blind and left playing a waiting game." Baird sighed, her body tense. Indeed, it was not a pleasant thought, to be waiting for more destruction if only to stop what might happen after.

"Perhaps not." Jenkins finally spoke up, his tone thoughtful. "Mr. Stone, do you still have those papers- those notes you took on our remaining missing Gods?"

"Yeah. Yeah, right here." Jacob reached into his interior jacket pocket and pulled out a large pile of papers, all scrawled on with thick, loopy writing. "Crius, Dionysus, Eros, Fae, Gaia, Hercules, Ikhthyokentauroi, Jason, Koalemos, Lelatos, Medusa, Nyx, Oneiroi, Poesidon, Qilin, Rhea, Selene, Theia, Uranus, Valkyries, Wendigo, Xanthus, Yuxa, and the Zlatorog."

"That's…" Cassandra sighed. "That's a lot."

"Yes, and simply "playing the waiting game", as Colonel Baird puts it, is illogical. It may lead to unnecessary casualties, ones we can prevent if we are proactive." Jenkins said quickly, spinning away from the very confused Librarians and their Guardian and moving rather fast to his little storage nook behind the staircase.

"Um…should we be concerned with his level of energy? I've never seen him move that fast…ever." Baird muttered to them. "I mean, he is kind of –"

"Kind of what, Colonel?" Jenkins emerged from his rummaging holding a thin oblong black box. "Old? I assure you, I am in no danger of breaking a hip. Now, Mr. Stone, if you please." Jenkins motioned his head as a sign for the art historian to follow as he led his way upstairs and down one of the hallways to the vastness of the main Library. Jacob cast a confused look over his shoulder to Cassandra before heading up after Jenkins. Cassandra, Ezekiel, Flynn and Baird stood there in the Annex for a few minutes in awkward silence.

"Oh, this is ridiculous." Baird scoffed at last, marching up the stairs after Jenkins and Stone, with the three Librarians clambering after her.

The hallways and rooms of the Library were tricky to maneuver, at least to Cassandra. Despite having the entire map inside her head, she had still managed to get herself lost dozens of times. The Library tended to like to rearrange itself according to its fancy, moving artifacts and certain rooms from spots where they should have been permanent, changing entire hallways sometimes just because! It pissed her off to no end.

So she kept behind Eve as she took turn after turn until she found a door that was open, a deep blue light coming from the open frame. Cassandra slowed down and walked to stand next to her Guardian, who was frozen in a state of shock, staring. And she saw why.

The room was filled with stars. Millions and millions of tiny balls of white light floated around the dark room, giving the illusion of open space. Cassandra gasped, taking in the brilliant sight before her. Cassandra knew that the Library contained rooms that were full of ancient magic, things that were full of history and incredible power. But she had never seen anything so beautiful as this room.

"Ah. I figured you four would catch up. " Jenkins's voice echoed from somewhere inside the room of stars. Slowly, Cassandra took a step forward, almost positive that the moment she came into the room, she would float away to mingle among the stars. To her surprise, there was an actual floor, and she stepped out in the middle of this magnificent place.

"Miss Cillian, over here!" Jenkins called out, and she turned to see Jenkins and Jacob standing further out, setting up what looked like a very expensive telescope. As she walked towards them, Jacob stood up from where he crouched at the base of the tool and turned around. For a brief moment, Cassandra's heart stopped. The stars seemed to tangle themselves in his hair, the light pinning his dark eyes, and illuminating him like a free falling angel. Cassandra felt her head start to spin and she realized that she had forgotten to breathe – again.

"Cassie? Are you alright?"

Was it only her imagination, or did he sound slightly out of breath? Were those stars in his eyes, or simply the reflections of the ones that surrounded them? Did she look as he did, like an angel falling amidst the starlight, the dust of the universe?

"Cassie?"

Cassandra shook herself out her fangirling fantasies and smiled shakily at the country boy in front of her. _Great, Cassie. Now he thinks you're even more of a space case. Nice way to scare him off before you've even talked about where you might be going as a couple. If he even wants to be a couple._

"Yep. Yeah. Yes. I am fine. Very fine. Absolutely dandy." Cassandra rambled nervously. "What are you doing here, Jenkins?" She quickly moved past Jacob, ignoring the look of stunned shock on his face as she went to stand by the old knight who was fiddling with the focus dial of the telescope. Now, Cassandra considered herself a bit of an expert with these quality scientific machines. As a child, before her tumor had made it's appearance, she had been fascinated with space and all that la above her. Her parents had obliged her fascination by buying her every latest model of telescope that was put out, building a first rate observatory as an extension to their roof, giving her space to work and explore and dodder out calculations on light speed and constellation patterns. Even after the diagnosis, she had kept up with her hobby (that was what it became- not a future career, but a simple hobby). But she had never seen this kind of telescope before, and she said as much to Jenkins.

"Well, that is because this is no ordinary telescope." Jenkins said.

"Really?" Ezekeiel Jones spoke from another corner of the vast room, hidden in the shadows and behind the millions of stars. "Seems pretty ordinary to me."

"Will you be careful, Mr. Jones?" Jenkins snapped, marching off to gather the thief. "This room is not meant for playing in or messing around. One wrong move and an entire constellation may as well come apart at the seams."

"Wait…" Baird said. "Are you saying that these are the real stars? From space?"

"Not precisely, Colonel. They are mere representations of the stars we see. However, this room allows Librarians to be up close and personal with them, without ever leaving Earth's particular comforts. We can observe the patterns, the coordinates of each categorized ball, and as such be on the look out for any irregularities."

"What sort of irregularities?" Jacob Stone asked, but Cassandra was hardly listening anymore. This was her dream, right here in this room. The whole of the universe hidden in the Library, each and every star she had gazed at and studied as a child – here, once again right before her eyes, and so close that she could reach out and touch it, cradle it in the palm of her hand. Never before had she been so awed with the presence of what was clearly magic.

"….isn't that right, Ms. Cillian?"

Cassandra was startled out of her awe by Jenkins saying her name, and she realized that her friends were looking at her expectantly. She flushed.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I was saying," Jenkins said with an odd look on his face, "that instead of simply waiting for the next attack to hit, we can be proactive and instead target what a specific idol may indeed be drawn to. In this case, we have Crius, the God of the Constellations."

"Crius is actually another of the Titans." Stone cut in. "He is the son of Uranus and Gaea. He's actually one of the oldest Titans in existence, despite his time locked away from all civilization."

"Great. We have to fight an angry old man?" Ezekiel muttered, but he quickly shut up with a stern look from both Stone and Baird.

"As I was saying," Stone looked back at Cassandra and she her best to ignore the stardust in his hair. "I figured you could help us identify whether or not he has disturbed the constellations or any of the stars yet, seeing as I know you hold some talent with the geographical mapping points of the stars and the lay lines."

 _He remembered!_ Cassie thought excitedly. She had mentioned it only once to him, maybe a year ago, about how she always loved the idea of space and the open beauty of the sky. She nodded, all of a sudden very shy, and came to look into the telescope.

"Now, the stars should be in the exact position the would be in the real world above us. All you need to do is look for irregularities in the positions of some of the more prominent constellations."

"Try looking in the Zodiac." Baird suggested. "I mean, aren't those the most commonly referenced star signs used?"

"It's a starting place." Stone conceded. "But there are thousands more. Orion and his belt, the Lion, the Dippers, Ursa Major and Minor….Crius could have an affinity for any of those."

"Let's just start with the basics, shall we?" Cassandra dropped her gaze to peer into the telescope, and nearly squealed at the sight. It was just like when she was younger. The stars spread themselves out before her eyes, shining and twinkling and winking at her with the lighthearted flirtations of old friends. Her heart swelled as she swiveled the looking glass around and around the room, passing over her friends and zooming in to focus on the enchanting balls of light.

After several long minutes, during which everyone watched and waited patiently, Cassandra finally found something.

"There's something off, here." Cassandra motioned vaguely to where she saw the shifting stars. "The stars…they're moving out of position. It's as if something is disturbing them."

"What constellation?" Jenkins asked. "It may help us identify the whereabouts of Crius. If he affecting a certain constellation, it could have meaning to him and we can deduce, through research, where he might be taking refuge."

"Aries." Cassandra looked hard through the telescope. "He's affecting the constellation of Aries."

"Shit." Jacob swore, and heads moved to him in great surprise. Despite a sometimes volatile anger and affinity for fighting and violence, the historian rarely if ever swore, and never once in front of them, as far as Cassandra could recollect.

"Ummm, excuse us?" Flynn said. Cassie jumped at the sound of his voice, which came from another shadowy corner of the room. She had nearly forgotten that their Lead Librarian was there with them.

"Sorry. It's just…" Jacob sighed. "That's not going to help us a whole lot. According to history and mythology, Crius was considered to be the representation of the constellation Aries. He marked the springtime rising in the south for the Greek New Year. There's nothing that could even give us a clue to his whereabouts."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Flynn said, and there was a chilling smile on his face as he spoke, and before any of them could call after him, he was out the door and back down to the Annex. Baird quickly followed her charge, and Ezekiel and Jacob followed suit. Jenkins was almost at the door when he turned back to face Cassandra, who was still standing by the telescope in the beautiful room.

"Ms. Cillian?" he asked quietly. "Are you sure you are okay?"

Cassandra stroked the metal contraption lovingly. She looked around at the beautiful space around her; the room she had never known existed. The Library had a habit of rearranging itself to it's own ever-changing pleasure. What if she never found her way back here?

"It will be here for you when we return. In fact, I would not be surprised if this room stayed in a permanent location." Jenkins said, somehow knowing exactly what it was she had been fearing. "The Library takes you into account when it redecorates. It invests in us as much as we invest in it. Or him, rather."

Cassandra laughed slightly, and with one more longing look at the thousands upon millions of stars, she followed after her friends back to the Annex. When she arrived, they were all gathered around Flynn's desk for a change. He had open a large complicated map that even she had trouble reading and following.

"Let's see…Stone, you mentioned that Aries was the rising springtime in the south in Greece?"

"Originally, yes." Jacob said slowly. "I mean, after the advancement of mythology to the rest of the world –"

"Don't care. Not important." Flynn waved him off. "Just – what else do you know about Crius. Tell me everything. Go!"

"Well," Jacob huffed, clearly angry at being ordered around by Flynn, "his alternate name is Kreios. Not much help there, since the only major difference is a slight speech affect and the spelling. He was considered one of the pillars of the world, separating Heaven and Earth with his brothers – there's Kronos, Koios, Hyperion, and Lapetos. None of them escaped, so he wouldn't be going for them. And legend states he didn't get along with them, seeing as he was the oldest. So we can't use them as leverage." Stone snuck a glance at Cassandra as he said this, and she smirked.

"Well, what can we use?" Flynn snapped. "Did he have any other names?"

"Maybe." Stone shrugged. "Not for his calling name. Worshippers addressed him as Ram or Ruler. They saw him as controller of the skies and their destinies. That was where the idea of Zodiac signs came from. They thought he could tell the forthcoming futures. "

"Come on….there must be something to narrow down the search." Flynn said. "The south….it has to do with the south. But the south of what? Of the world? Of America? Of Greece?"

"Of course!" Stone shouted suddenly, so suddenly that Ezekiel toppled from where he had been perched. "I can't believe I forgot! Greece!"

"What about it?" Ezekiel grumbled.

"It's their New Year now. Spring. That means that Crius would find himself compelled to return to the place where his constellation, Aries, was being celebrated, even in technicality."

"So he's in Greece." Baird said, and she looked over to where the books lay, silent. "But he's not causing mayhem. How will we find him?"

"South…Southern Greece. What's there that might interest Crius?" Flynn murmured. "I mean, going so far, there would be the sea –"

"Kalamai!" Stone whooped again. His happiness was oddly placed, but Cassandra supposed it came from the sudden breakthrough he seemed to be having. "It's considered the most alluring Cliffside in Greece."

"And…you would know this how?"

Jacob Stone blushed slightly, the redness faded from beneath his five o'clock shadow that was starting.

"What I do in my free time is my own business. I may or may not have used the back door once or twice to do some "Bucket List" traveling." Stone cleared his throat. "Anyway, Kalamai is considered the perfect place to stargaze. Smoke and pollution from the cities don't reach that far, and it leaves the sky clear, so you can sit above the ocean and watch the stars."

"Okay but how does this help us?" Ezekiel prompted.

"Crius had a wife and son, as most of the legends do." Jacob began to pace with excitement and Cassandra bit her lip to keep from laughing. She must not have been entirely successful, because he stopped and looked at her with frenzied eyes. A smile played on his soft lips, and he smiled at her with a sort of electric energy. "His wife was Eurybia and his son was Astraias."

"The Goddess of the Sea and the God of Stars." Jenkins finished. "Of course. Of course!"

"Could someone please explain…?" Baird said, with no small amount of exasperation.

"Despite being a Titan, Crius is not altogether dangerous. In fact, he tends to be quite docile in almost all situations. You may only need to talk to him to convince him to return. " Jenkins said, hurrying to the back door and beginning to spin the brass globe with flurried hands.

"Yes, but how?" Baird said. "Are we sure he'll be there? For that matter, why would he bet there in the first place?"

"Baird, you've got to trust me." Stone said, and Cassandra was caught up in an instant with painful memories that those few words brought about. Trust. With Jacob Stone, it always came back to trust. There was nothing else that mattered more. She had lost it once – had betrayed and broken and all but destroyed his trust in her. He had said there was no way to get it back – but sometimes she wondered. Sometimes he said he had faith in her abilities – but was faith another word for trust?

"Alright."

The back door opened with a powerful gusting force, and already, Cassandra could smell the salt of the ocean, the soft cry of gulls, and whoosh of the waves against the rocks. With the feeling of falling and nearly flying, Cassandra dove through the door to Greece.

* * *

They landed softly on a grass covered cliff, several feet back from the edge, but close enough to be awed at the simple vastness of their new surroundings. It was incredibly stunning – the wide open space, the clean air and the soft brightness of the darkening sky as small pinpricks that were stars came out from up above. Cassandra could hear the ocean lapping gently far below them, and she turned to face the edge of the cliff, wanting to get as close as she could to seeing the far horizon – but she stopped at what she saw.

It seemed to be the outline of a man. She could see the rough silhouette of his head, shoulders, the broad back and long legs. But the rest of him – it was like looking through a thin vapor, or a shade. And he was made of stars, like the little balls of light from the room in the Library. This towering giant was nothing more than a piece of the sky ripped out and shaped into the form of a man. He stood at the edge of the cliff, staring off to the endlessness of the world. Cassandra glanced away from him and to her companions, who were all struck in awe at this gentle giant.

"Librarians. I can sense you. What do you want with me?"

The voice of the Titan god was surprisingly gentle and flowy, like a caress from the wind. All tension seemed to melt off of her, and while Cassandra's mind screamed that she should be vigilant, that she should not let her guard down, she could not help it. She could not be afraid of Crius.

It was Jacob, again, who stepped forward. He seemed the only one able to do so.

"Crius. I know why you are here."

Crius did not turn around. The stars remained in place, and Cassandra wondered what it was Jacob was trying to do.

"With all respect to you, young one, I doubt that you do. You might assume that I have returned to my place as springtime rises here in Greece. You would be only partially correct, but still partially incorrect as it is. I came here to be alone at last. "

"No." Jacob spoke as softly as the mighty being in front of him, as if he were talking to a skittish horse. "You are here for your family."

At this, Crius did turn around, with the air of someone greatly surprised, but not altogether unpleasantly. As he turned, Cassandra caught more illusions of detail to him. Dark clusters of shadow marked his hair, burning yellow suns were his eyes, and the rest of the stars embodied the whole of him, like a simple sketch on a dark sheet of paper, yet it contained so much depth.

"What do you know of my family, mortal?" There was no anger here, but Cassandra heard the beginnings of a deep suspicion.

"Stone, be careful." Baird whispered.

"Your wife, Eurybia, she is the Goddess of the Sea, isn't she?" Jacob took a step closer to the Titan. "You came here to be close to her – or at least, in the hopes that she was lucky enough to have claimed her freedom as well, and that she would be here. "

"Mortal Stone," Crius rumbled, and the stars began to tremble. "You talk of things beyond your knowledge."

"No, no I don't. My knowledge is vast, especially in this subject." Jacob said confidently, yet with no air of arrogance. Perhaps that was what made Crius relax. Cassandra could see the stars back away, and the air felt still again. And yet, she could not move. Baird and Ezekiel and Flynn, too, seemed frozen. What was this? Why were they stuck? And why wasn't Jacob?

"My wife…" Crius said softly.

"And your son. He is the God of Stars. It's why you came to this very spot, isn't it? Since this is where the two come closest together. It is where you thought you might find them. "

"I thought they were behind me." Crius said, and it seemed that he was lost in deep thought. "I thought, as the top opened, that they followed me and we were merely separated. But then that blasted idiot, Dionysus, was the first thing I saw and I knew he had pushed them aside. But I hoped."

"They are not here, Crius." Stone was closer now to the silhouette of the man. "They are back where they have always been. You are not going to find them outside in the world that has moved on far past you and them and the rest of the Gods."

"I am not needed. I am not missed." Crius mumbled, and he seemed to shrink down from his colossal height, growing smaller and closer to the size of a normal man.

"But you are remembered here." Jacob assured. "It is all a part of history. It is why I know it. As a Librarian, you know, I will always know it. And my friends will, and future Librarians will remember you."

"I do not wish to be here any longer." Crius was not the same size as Jacob. "I wish to return to my wife and son. I wish to go home. Can you help me?"

Cassandra watched as Jacob nodded and pulled from behind him the ornate box. She had no idea where he had hidden it, but she supposed that was a question for a later time. She watched as Jacob held the box out and spoke low to the God, who said something in return. It was too dark to see Jacob's face, now, but she saw his body jolt in surprise. Crius laughed, a sound distant and pleasant, and he reached out to touch the top of Pandora's Box. With a whoosh and blink of starlight, he was gone.

It was as if they had been released from stone. Cassandra sucked in a deep breath and heard the others do the same.

"Is that it? He's gone?" Baird asked, surprised. Stone merely nodded, looking still as if he couldn't believe it.

"Man, why can't they all be this easy?" Ezekiel sighed.


	6. Dionysus

**A/N: As promised, a chapter from Baird's point of view. Ezekiel should be coming up eventually, I promise. I am so sorry this took so long. As you know, these chapters take a long time to write, and I've been swamped all summer long. Plus, I am now in college.**

 **I do not own Librarians, or any of the Greek mythology and history used in this story. The plot itself is indeed my little project, and I thank everyone who has left a review.**

 **Sorry this is so long!**

 **Keep it up!**

* * *

"Stone." Eve Baird barked as she and the rest of her wards collapsed out of the backdoor's tumultuous flash and into the center of the Annex. "Explain to me, please, what the hell that was?"

She looked at the historian with a stern eye as he righted himself, handing Pandora's Box over to Jenkins, who placed it securely back into the magical barrier in the corner of the room. He shifted awkwardly on his feet, which caused her to narrow her eyes further. Jacob Stone was never flustered, never nervous, never guilty….not with her, not with magic. Ezekiel and Cassandra moved to stand beside him, each giving him odd looks that Baird didn't want to interpret now. Ezekiel's, at least, was calculating and simple enough to understand. It was Cassandra's face, or really, the look she was giving Stone, that concerned her. She knew that the genius had a thing for the country boy, and lately, there had been hints that he might return the feelings. But hopefully, they could put off all of those raging emotions until this war was finished. She had enough to deal with than play mediator when things went bad between them.

"What are you talking about, Baird?" Stone tried to play off his nervousness with bravado, but it was clear that the effort was half-hearted. He knew he was screwed here.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about." Eve growled at him. She felt Flynn come up behind her and place a hand on her lower back. Just that small contact was enough to remind her to reign in her agitation. Stone wasn't a soldier. He was just as stubborn as one. "That stunt you pulled back there on the cliff. What was that?"

"Eve," Flynn said. "Stone didn't freeze us. Crius did."

"But why was Stone the only one able to move? Why did Crius let him get so close? And where did the box come from? We left it here when we came through the back door." A rookie mistake, and one that should have cost them dearly. Should have, but didn't.

"I've been wondering about that, too." Cassandra spoke up. Stone glanced at her in surprise, and maybe a little bit hurt. She flushed slightly, but she held his gaze. "It was quite strange, Jacob. I was hoping to talk to you about that as well."

"Yeah, mate. So why don't you spill?" Ezekiel prodded.

"Did you do something, Stone?" Flynn finally said the one thing they had all been thinking, though Baird was hardly aware that that was what her nervous worrying anger had been focused on. When your job centers around magic and all it's dangers, it can make you insanely paranoid that everyone around you has an ulterior , it happened before. Despite these few people here being the closest friends and family she had in the world, Baird knew that she couldn't turn off her NATO training and instincts when they said something was off. And something was definitely off.

"Do what?" Stone growled, now becoming angry.

"Did you use magic out there with Crius?" Eve snapped.

"Absolutely not." Stone's voice was firm and unwavering. "You know my stance on using magic, especially untested magic. And I'm no traitor.'

"Then what-"

"I tripped!" Jacob Stone was not a man you could easily embarrass, but Eve Baird was stunned to see the telltale blush working it's way into the man's cheeks. They all stood, blinking at him in surprise. Even Jenkins stopped his work on the box to send a questioning glance their way.

"I-I'm sorry, you what?" Eve asked again, biting her lip, her previous anxiety seeming to melt away. Cassandra snorted behind her hand, trying to school her features into place as Jacob sent her a scathing look.

"Did you say you tripped?" Ezekiel hooted, his whole face lighting up. Poor Stone. Once Zeke had his nimble paws on any sort of blackmail, no matter how small, he made the most of the ammo and let it rip right at you. "You? Master of art and grace and all that inner peace mumbo jumbo?"

"It's not-" Stone sighed. "Look, we were just about to go through the door to Kalamai when my foot caught on something, alright? I don't know what, but all I know is that I fell. And then you guys went through and I had to hurry my ass up before the door closed but then I saw the Box, so I grabbed it and ran through just as the doors were closing. When I landed, all of you were stock still, but I wasn't. I don't know why."

"It was Crius, of course." Jenkins finally spoke, and they looked to the caretaker. "He must have sensed the four of you when you landed and sent out a wave of energy to keep you paralyzed in place."

"He did seem to recognize us as Librarians." Cassandra amended, thinking back.

"But why didn't he do the same to Stone when he came?" Flynn mused.

"He was distracted." Baird said, a light bulb suddenly flaring in her brain. "He didn't sense Stone was late because he was too busy looking for his wife and son."

"Seems that's our best weapon against these freaks." Ezekiel muttered, then started when Baird, Stone and Jenkins glared at him. "I mean, we can use that, then, to our advantage. Their distraction. Means we can get a lot closer than they'd normally let us."

"Singularly? It's a sound theory, Mr. Jones." Jenkins checked the large silver ornate watch wrapped around his wrist. "However, the remaining twenty-three idols have now been loose for exactly five days, thirteen hours, and forty-two seconds. Every second that passes, they become more settled into their new surroundings. Soon, there will be little that can distract them from their purpose of mayhem. "

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Eve clapped her hands together and took stance as commander. "Let's-"

There was a sudden flash, and all heads turned to look at the center table, where one of the small clippings books was lighting up vibrantly. Eve strode forward and snatched it up, hissing at the heat radiating from the pages.

"Geez, it feels like this one is about to burst into flames."

"Hurry! Open it!" Flynn said, waving his arm dramatically. Sending him a very sleep-deprived glare, Eve flipped open the book to the glowing hot page.

"Well." Ezekiel said impatiently. "What is it? Suspicious activity in Rio? The Egyptian Pyramids? The Vatican?"

"Vacation on your own time, Mr. Jones, and not at the expense of the rest of the world." Jenkins snapped. "Colonel Baird?"

"Oh my God." Baird said after a moment. This was nothing like their last three cases. Even just skimming the small page, Baird could visualize all the pain, grief and labor this would cause her team.

"What?" Flynn asked, both eager and concerned with her reaction. "What is it? Or who is it? Or where is it? Come on, Eve, don't leave us in the dark!"

"Flynn." Baird quelled her partner with a serious glare, something her LITs picked up on almost immediately.

"Eve?" Cassandra said softly. "What's happened?"

"You warned us, Jenkins." Baird sighed. "You warned us that things would escalate, and now they have. I thought we had more time, though. It's been five days. Not even five days!"

"Wait, hold up." Ezekiel held his hands up. "I am so lost. Baird, what's happened? I'm sure we can fix whatever Mr. and Mrs. Greek Idol has wrecked."

"Not this time Jones." Eve Baird sighed and looked down at the grim page before her. "This time, someone paid the ultimate price."

The four Librarians and the old caretaker looked at each other, now very worried about their next assignment. No one spoke, only waited for their Guardian to lead them.

"Twenty – Year – Old College Junior Dies of Mysterious Overdose," Eve read aloud and Cassandra gasped. Eve glanced up to see the genius clutching at Stone's hand, one hand over her mouth. Stone had her pulled to his side and his brow was furrowed.

"Go on, Colonel." Jenkins said.

"Evan DeMarco, a finishing junior at Bacchus University in Western California, died last night under mysterious circumstances after one of the campus fraternity parties. According to authorities, he had a high blood alcohol level, and it was discovered that he had suffered a massive heart attack due to an overdose of some unknown drug in his system. Police as of yet have no leads."

As the article came to a close, Eve was aware of Stone trying to comfort a shell-shocked Cassandra, whispering to her. Eve couldn't hear everything, but she caught snippets, things that sounded like "listen, love", "get him justice" and "I promise you, darling". Once again, she saw a sort of closeness emerging between the two Librarians, and it was oddly fascinating to watch the quirky redhead connect to the introverted historian. She'd have to investigate that further later.

"Hey." Eve said softly. "Look, this may not be a fixable situation, but the clippings book sent this to us. It's a crime of magic, and now it's our job to make sure it doesn't happen again, and make this as right as possible."

"Baird's right, Cassie." Stone said to the still stunned girl in his arms. "We can stop the God who did this. What happened to that kid – to Evan – is a tragedy. But we can make sure it doesn't happen again. No one else will die. I promise. And I always keep my promises."

After a moment, Cassandra seemed to steel herself and she nodded. Stone's words seemed to have helped her more than they once might have a few years ago. Oh, how things have changed.

"Okay. Okay. Let's do this. For Evan."

"For Evan."

"For Evan."

"What else do we know?" Ezekiel asked Baird. "Anything to help us identify which idol we're going after?"

"I don't think so." Baird said. "I mean, it says here that Evan died under mysterious circumstances, but then the police say he was completely intoxicated and suspected a drug overdose. But there's no mention of any drug. It just says unknown."

"That must be part of the magic, then." Flynn exclaimed. "That's a clue. It's a clue. That's gotta be a clue!"

"Slow your roll, Sherlock. We don't know anything for certain, yet, so let's jump to conclusions after we visit the scene, okay? Jenkins?"

"Where to, Colonel?" Jenkins prepared the golden globe and the backdoor began to glow.

"Bacchus University, Temecula California."

"Huh."

Baird turned to look at Jacob Stone, who was rubbing at his tattoo, or runic magic mark, on his arm with a serious, withdrawn look on his face, as if he was in deep concentration.

"Stone." Baird called him to attention. "You okay?"

"Hm?" Stone blinked and shot her a charming, if not entirely convincing, smile. "Yeah. Uh, I just thought – I don't – it's nothing. I'm sure of it."

Baird gave him a look, one that distinctly said, "This – isn't – over – because – that – excuse – was – bullshit" before turning and taking the familiar plunge into time and space.

* * *

They stuck the familiarly uncomfortable landing as the five of them toppled out of the janitor's closet at Bacchus University in Western California. It wasn't large school (maybe 5,000 total students) but Bacchus did have quite the reputation of being one of the most popular party schools in the state. Now, however, the hallways were dead quiet, and Eve could not suppress a chill of apprehension.

"Who has the Box?" she whispered.

"In my backpack." Ezekiel said, and Baird knew the situation was serious by the lack of any sort of huff of annoyance, or crack of any kind. He was all work now.

"Good. Let's move." Eve said and started a cautious trek down the hallway.

"Um, does any one else feel that this is kind of, well, strange?" Cassandra asked. "Where is everyone?"

"Didn't you ever go to college?" Ezekiel said, a note of his usual arrogance creeping into his voice. "It's Friday night. That means frat parties."

"That means another possible victim." Eve reminded them. "Evan died at one of the frat parties around here, which means whatever, or whoever, we're looking for is going to be at one of those gatherings. We just have to narrow down which one."

"Let's get outside." Cassie said. "I might have an idea."

The four Librarians and their Guardian hustled around the corners before finally finding the front doors and bursting out into the brisk cool courtyard of the school. Bacchus University was actually a very isolated school, surrounded by thick woods that was not usually common in California, but seemed to grow like ivy around this particular place. There was one road leading out of the campus, and there was nothing but darkness down that way.

Baird turned around and tried to look at this little place they had been called to. The building they had been dropped in was actually the school's History and Science Building. Over to her left, she could see some other boxed buildings that she assumed were most likely the dorms, and on her right were some more academic halls. She knew the school stretched further behind where she was standing, but Baird had the feeling anyways that she was missing a whole lot of something.

"Okay," Cassandra said, with less confidence than she had inside, "I was going to try and do a geographic profile of the college's layout based on similar schools and cross reference the norm of fraternity houses and locations -"

"What?" Stone, Flynn and Jones looked at her with blank stares.

"Never mind." Cassandra huffed. "It won't work now anyway. We're practically in the middle of nowhere. If there's a party, it isn't on the campus."

"Or is it?" Flynn mused, but didn't elaborate. Instead, he stood stock still facing the woods. None of them moved, hoping that this was one of the few moments when Flynn's crazy notions actually panned out. They stood that way for a while, and it was after a few minutes that Baird realized that something was off. There was nothing to hear. Absolutely nothing.

No crickets, no wind, no birds or cicadas or music playing from the dorms. It was as if everyone had vanished, without a trace.

"No one is here." Baird said.

"No. Not here." Flynn said, still distracted by something only he knew. "Close."

"Okay….." Baird said slowly. "Let's go over what we know."

"Evan DeMarco. He was a junior here at Bacchus and died under mysterious circumstances with an unknown drug in his system after attending a wild party at a seemingly nonexistent frat house."

"Bacchus….party….drug…" Stone muttered. "Why is that so familiar?"

"Remembering your own glory days, pal?" Ezekiel chided. "Sorry to say they have long passed you by."

"Shut up, you Aussie prick -"

"Guys, enough!" Baird snapped. "You can tear each other apart later - "

"That's it!" Stone exclaimed, making even Flynn jump. "Dionysus!"

"Who -e what-e?" Ezekiel said. Stone rolled his eyes and continued with excited and desperate fervor.

"Dionysus. Cannot believe it took me this long to piece this together." Stone muttered. "He was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Semele. He's the only God, actually, with a mortal parent."

"So what's his story?" Cassandra asked. "Why is this disturbance because him?"

"When Semele saw Zeus's glory, she burst into flames, leaving Dionysus to Olympus. Zeus granted him immortality and made him a God. There's more to his story - including being torn apart, which is why I finally remembered it, but that's not what's important here. I don't think, anyways. But as a God, he is considered to bring joy and be the God of parties and drunkenness."

"Sounds like a frat to me." Cassandra muttered.

"I'm not finished." Stone said breathlessly. "Look, he also was in control of chaos and extreme rage, and his followers were usually driven mad withe ecstasy."

"I assume your not talking about the drug." Baird said.

"No. He literally drives them to death with overwhelming happiness." Stone said. "It could explain why the police were so confused. If Evan was unknowingly partying with Dionysus, he would have been drunk off his ass. Not to mention, he would have been too plastered to realize that there was a problem to begin with. And even if he had, Dionysus would have just amped it up until his heart gave out. And it did."

"Look I guess this is a sound theory." Ezekiel drawled. "But do you have anything to actually prove to us that it's him beside some history mumbo jumbo that we could have Googled in the time it took for you to tell us?"

"Jones, shut up." Eve snapped before turning back to Stone. "But do you?"

"Oh yeah." Jacob Stone reveled in his juicy piece of vital information for just a second longer (probably to annoy Ezekiel - those two had a weird rivalry going on) before looking Baird and Flynn dead in the eyes with his usual determined seriousness. It was that look that always confirmed to Eve that no matter what happened in the field, no matter how they argued and quarreled and got on each other's nerves, Stone would always come through for all of them.

"Dionysus had a second name." Stone said softly. "Bacchus."

"That sounds like proof to me." Cassandra said.

"Yeah." Flynn said. "Now the next question is…if Dionysus is here and causing his own form of mischief….where is he?"

"The woods." Stone said. "Lore states that the woods are where wild men and women would be driven to the brink of insanity. If he was here….that's where he would have led everyone."

"Into the woods we go." Flynn said, and before anyone could say anything more, he was off to the races, the other four sprinting to keep up with him. The fear of what might happen if they were too late spurred them forward, and it wasn't long before the fluorescent night lights of the school was lost to the pressing darkness of the trees. They slowed their hurried pace and crept cautiously further into the woods, their eyes peeled wide and listening hard for any sign of…well, anything. There was nothing.

And then suddenly -

"A ward." Flynn whispered, and he came to a halt in a. seemingly random spot.

"What?" Baird asked, looking from Flynn to the utterly ordinary and empty woods around them.

"Of course." Cassandra caught on quickly, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "Dionysus's whole existence is driving people mad. Esctasy in a wild and natural from. There should be screams, chanting, bonfires or fireworks, noises of drinking and partying, any or all of that. But it's absolutely silent."

"Yeah. We know." Ezekiel chimed in.

"But if Dionysus had a ward…" Cassandra said, and she and Flynn shared a wild look.

"He'd be able to hide all that until he was finished." Flynn said.

Baird turned to face the still and empty space in front of her, well aware that her Librarians were watching her anxiously. Slowly, Eve reached out a fine and began to push at the air directly in front of her. She didn't feel anything different (just stupider) when suddenly it was as if her finger had found an invisible wall.

"Here." As she spoke, she pushed a little harder, and discovered that the wall was flexible, molding around her finger and her hand, and suddenly she was passing straight through the wall, and Eve Baird found herself on the other side as if nothing had happened.

Except the other side was nothing like the quiet she had been surrounded with previously.

Here were the screams - hundreds of college kids - screaming in a circle, a bonfire the size of a cattle barn in the center of their whooping cult worship (though Baird knew that they had no idea what was going on). There were guys over to the side just chugging bottle after bottle of beer, girls who were stripped bare and running through the crowd. It was absolutely wild and animalistic - but the one thing they all had in common were the smiles of sheer joy.

"Baird! Are you -" Flynn suddenly popped into existence right next to her, and her three other charges came in behind her. "Oh merciful Merlin."

"I think we hit the jackpot on this one." Baird said. "Stone."

"Hm?" Jacob Stone grunted, his attention divided between the chaos around them, the boys getting steadily rougher and drunken off to the side, and Cassandra, who seemed very overwhelmed. And she probably was - the sheer amount of stimuli was probably making her brain go haywire.

"Is there anything else about Dionysus that might be helpful? Anything we could use to disarm him?"

"Disarm me?" a cool voice slurred, and the five of them froze in place as they realized that the screaming had stopped - and each and everyone of the wild teens were staring right at them with a mixture of fury and happiness. Baird tried to figure out which of them had spoken, but as the voice continued, no one she looked at opened their mouths even a tiny bit. It was as if he wasn't there at all…. "Who are you to come here and threaten to disarm me? Disarm me? Me?"

"Uh," Flynn stepped forward, and Baird could tell that he was a little off balance with the lack of confrontation as well, "well, we'll be happy to share that information with you, if we only knew who it was we were exactly addressing…?"

Slowly, very slowly, the sea of people parted, and one boy strode through. Well, perhaps boy wasn't the right word. He was tall, much taller than anyone else there, and had long flowing brown locks that just about reached his shoulders, which were broad. He was well built, muscled, and very handsome. But there was still something wild about him, something dangerous that the teenage clothing he was in didn't seem to capture. He smiled, and there was a glint of something manic in his eyes.

"Dionysus." Baird breathed, and for a flicker of a second, he seemed surprised.

"Librarians. How quaint. I haven't seen any of your kind since the beginning." The god smirked. "What is it you're doing here? Ruining a good party and all?"

"Does the name Evan DeMarco ring a bell?" Flynn asked cautiously, though his tone was hard. Dionysus turned his gaze over to him, his face not betraying a single emotion.

"Should it?"

"He was killed." Cassandra blurted out. "Here. Because of you, because of your parties. He died in pain."

"He died drunk and happy." Dionysus scoffed.

"He died too young." Cassandra said. "Believe me, that is no way to die. It has nothing to do with whether you're happy or not - dying young is a tragedy."

"Death is a part of all mortals." Dionysus growled, his anger now flaring. The teens around him hissed and drew back, though there was a tense excitement to their expressions. "Isn't that what you always say? So do not come here preaching to me about some dead child who chose to be here, with me, at my wild parties. He made his bed, now he must lie in it. Dead is dead."

"What about Semele?"

Stone's words had the greatest effect. Dionysus froze, and suddenly he seemed to swell, his form growing larger and larger until he towered above them as a dark shape, the air swirling around him.

"What about her?"

"She was your mother." Stone said, raising his voice above the wind. "And a mortal woman. She died after your birth, having seen the unmirrored glory of Zeus, your father."

"Librarian, make your point before I -"

"She was dead!" Stone bellowed. "She was dead, and you brought her back. You raised her from the underworld and brought her to Olympus for all time. She was mortal. She was always going to die, but because you loved her - and you did - you couldn't bear to see her part so early from you. So you brought her back. You cheated death."

Slowly, the wind died down and Dionysus shrank back to his hidden form, the tall muscled youth. His face was still blank of emotion, but his eyes no longer held such a manic glint. They were saddened now, burdened by memory.

"I…" he whispered. "How do you know so much?'

"It has been a long time." Flynn said. "But he," he pointed at Stone, "is right. You loved your mother so much that you brought her back from the dead, something few gods are even capable of. Don't you think that maybe Evan has people who love him? People who would give anything to have him back?"

Dionysus said nothing, but there was a change in the air. Baird looked behind her, and saw a shimmering web of light - the wall was coming down. There was nothing separating them from the rest of the world anymore. She looked back and saw that besides the five of them and Dionysus, all the teens seemed frozen in time, their eyes closed as if they were sleeping.

"I can deliver Evan back to his family, erase their memories of what happened. The same can be said for these ones here." Dionysus said. "It's the best I can do."

"No." Ezekiel said, speaking for the first time since they had gotten to this hidden glade. "The best you can do would be to fix this, and go back to your home. At least there, you can be with your family. There, you are with the ones you love." Ezekiel pulled out the box, and immediately, Dionysus recoiled. Baird was afraid for a second that the process they had made would be undone, but then the god sighed and stepped closer.

"So it must be, so it is written." Dionysus breathed and touched a finger to Pandora's box. A hurricane gale sprung up almost immediately and Baird found herself flung backwards, tossed into the air, spinning round and round and round until suddenly -

She was standing in the same spot, as if nothing had ever happened. The glade was empty, the teens and Dionysus gone as well as every trace of something magical.

Another one down, twenty two to go.


	7. Eros

**A/N: Okay! Let's get this show on the road, huh, folks? More Librarians magic coming right up!**

 **Remember: I don't own Librarians. The plot is my own little masterpiece. Also, this is way longer than I intended.**

 **Please review!**

* * *

They tumbled back through the portal, Dionysus safely locked away in the Box. Jenkins came up to them immediately and took Pandora's Box from Ezekiel, carrying the slightly rattling cube ginelrgly as he rushed to the opposite end of the Annex to place it in its ward. Baird watched through hooded eyes, the last couple of days catching up with her all of a sudden. The adrenalin high she had had since the day the box was open was evaporating fast, and the crash was coming hard.

Eve glanced at the others and saw that they looked exactly as she felt. They had gotten…what, four gods? Jesus Christ, and there were still twenty - two wreaking havoc out there. Baird knew they were all running fumes, and those wouldn't last the next hour. So, as Guardian, she figured it was high time she made the executive decision.

"Alright. That's it." Baird panted. "We cannot keep doing this."

"Beg pardon?" Jenkins said as he came back to join the exhausted Librarians.

"This." Baird waved her arms around, tensing as the muscles screamed at her. Her whole body just felt heavy and bloated, like she was filled with saltwater. Even her vision was wavy, and she could feel her legs sway her body from side to side with pure fatigue. "Look at us. We're practically the walking dead."

"Oh, I love that show." Cassandra yawned, stumbling a little into Stone, who barely managed to hold her up alongside him.

"See what I mean?" Baird said. "Look, I know time is of the essence and everything but we need to rest, Jenkins. We've barely had two minutes since this whole thing started to clean ourselves up. And since those goddamn things," she pointed haphazardly over to where the miniature clippings books sat on the desk, "don't seem to be doing anything anytime soon, I say, we take a fiver to recoup. And that's an order, not a suggestion." Baird barked at her team, in case any of those smartasses dared to try and pick a fight with her. Luckily, even Flynn seemed dead on his feet and Ezekiel was in no shape to argue, his Aussie sass getting lost in transit on the way from his brain to his mouth.

"I see." Jenkins said. "Well, in that case, Colonel, I will assist in setting up some private quarters for you all. Unfortunately, under such an attack, I must insist that you all stay within shouting distance of this room here. However, the Library seems to have things in order."

And just like that, it was all decided. Baird turned around and saw that, just below the staircase, three new doors had appeared, one red, one blue, and one lilac. Baird raised her eyebrows but didn't even question it. The Library worked in mysterious ways, and when they were this ready to just crawl in a grave and die, it wasn't wise to question the higher power when it gave you a free bed.

"That works for me." Baird said. "So -"

"Eve and I will take the red door." Flynn announced, taking her gently by the arm. "Jacob and Ezekiel -"

"Will not be sharing a room, thank you." Ezekiel Jones quipped. "Blue room, all for me thanks. Ezekiel Jones doesn't do "sharing", especially not with "Mister Hit First, Ask Questions Later".

"But - " Baird started to say.

"It's alright. I don't mind sharing with Jake." Cassandra said sleepily, leaning even more into the historian's weary arms. Baird shot Stone a look, but aside from a weariness that seemed to seep into his bones, there were no objections from him. She raised an eyebrow but decided not to tackle this particular quarrel until she was well rested and had the mind power. So instead, she simply shrugged and let Flynn pull her to their room for the night.

"All right. Everyone get some rest. Jenkins, keep an eye on things. If even a single page gets just a shade lighter, wake us up pronto."

"Will do."

Slowly, they all shuffled to their selected doors. Baird turned her head to watch Ezekiel bolt through his blue door, slamming it shut almost immediately. She saw Jacob leading Cassandra, who was still leaning heavily on him, through the lilac door. He was very gentle with her. Stone was a country boy…southern hospitality and all that….Baird shook her head and finally allowed Flynn to lead her into their room. Everything was going to be fine. It was. She hoped.

* * *

There was something wrong. Baird sensed it as soon as she woke up. Well, maybe not as soon as she woke up. The room that the Library had given them was well equipped with the finer furnishings of a royal suite, including two bay windows with satin curtains, a king sized bed, a fur rug, and a large fireplace already lit. That night, Baird had fallen asleep in Flynn's arms, and that was how she had woken up the next morning, with sunlight streaming on her face. It was a warm, comfortable feeling, and every fiber of her being revolted at the thought of having to get out of the warm cocoon she was in. Eve Baird felt as if she was in a dream where nothing could touch her.

Except that wasn't true. The events of the last few days caught up with her and she groaned, shifting around Flynn's arms around her. They had caught four Gods - which, for them, was impressive - but there were still twenty- two out there. Twenty -two. That was impossible, and Baird had no idea how they were going to tackle something this big.

But that wasn't what gave her a bad feeling.

She felt it right as she rolled out of the bed. She hadn't gotten to be a Colonel for NATO for nothing. Her instincts were good, more than good actually, so she trusted them immediately when she noted that something was not right. The problem was that she couldn't pinpoint exactly what was throwing her off her game. Nothing was out of place, there were no alarms, no one was yelling for help, there were no explosions -

And that was it.

 _The problem was that there were no problems._

Baird immediately leapt out of bed, jostling Flynn, who moaned as he started to wake up out of his bliss. Eve scrounged for her clothes, which had somehow become scattered all around the room, as Flynn Carson stretched and yawned, the sheet that had been tucked around his chest slipping to settle on his waist. Baird gave him a hungry look before continuing her search for her pants.

"Good morning." Flynn whispered, and Eve looked to see the dopiest, sappiest smile plastered on his face.

"Morning." She couldn't help but smile back.

"Where are you going?" Flynn pouted, and Baird paused. "Come back to bed. I miss you."

"Flynn, listen, as much as I would _really_ love to get back into that bed with you," Baird spoke slowly, "I can't. We can't."

"Did…did I do something wrong?" Flynn whimpered. "Are you leaving me? Please don't leave me, Eve! I love you! Let me prove it! I'll prove it, I swear!"

"Um," Eve Baird froze in the process of pulling on her shirt. "Are you alright?"

"How can you ask me that?" Flynn's whimper disappeared and was relapsed with a sappy, lovesick smile. "I'm with you. I'm more than alright. Come back to bed, lover. Please?"

Eve stared at her Librarian, who was beckoning to her seductively with wide eyes. What the hell? Not that she didn't appreciate half-naked Flynn Carson beckoning to her sexually, but this was unlike him. Since when did he simper? Did Flynn even know how to simper? Since when did he try this hard to put her before the Library? Yeah, she was important to him, she knew that, but not as important as Excalibur or the artifacts or especially finding the missing -

"Gods." Baird breathed. Her bad feeling intensified. "Um, listen, I'll be right back, okay?"

"B-but," Flynn started to pout again. "Don't leave, my fair Eve! Whatever it is you desire, I will do it! I promise, I-"

"You want to do something for me?" Baird snapped. "Then stay right there. Don't move - _lover."_

Flynn's enthusiastic and determinedly in-love look confirmed that he would stay right in that bed while she tried to figure out what the hell was happening. With a nod of feigned approval, Baird quickly thrust her arm through the sleeve of her shirt and bolted out the door, closing it quickly behind her.

"Jenkins!" Baird yelled into the very quiet, empty Annex. "Jenkins!" No one came, and Baird's bad feeling kept growing, settling uncomfortably in the pit of stomach. "So much for staying within yelling distance."

"Eve?"

Baird turned around and saw, with evident relief, Cassandra exited out of the lilac room which she had shared with Stone. Baird noticed with some surprise that Cassie was wearing one of the historian's shirts, which was far too big and hung loosely on her small frame.

"Cassandra, are you alright?" Eve hurried to her friend, looking her over cautiously, but the genius waved her off with a small blush.

"I didn't have any sleep wear, and Jake offered me his shirt, which is a lot more comfortable than stockings and skirts and vests and cardigans, I'll admit." Cass shook her head, her red curls falling in tangles in front if her face, which she pushed away impatiently. "But there's something else."

"If it's about yours and Stone's relationship, listen -"

"What?" Cassandra squeaked. "Our - we aren't - I mean, maybe, but we haven't exactly talked about -"

"Whoa, calm down, Cassandra." Baird laid her hand on the younger girl's shoulder. Just as she did so, she froze. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Cassie coked her head in confusion, but Baird remained still. Something wasn't right….for a moment, she thought she could feel someone watching them. She thought she had heard a laugh. But nothing could get into the Library. So she was just imagining things, right?

"Cassandra, how was Stone? When you woke up?"The red headed genius's eyes widened, and before she even started to explain, Baird knew her hunch was correct.

"Eve, something is wrong. When I woke up, Stone was….being sweet. I mean, I know he's sweet - and by that, I mean I know he can be sweet and kind and wonderful - but this morning, there was no trace of the rough and tough cowboy. I mean, he was just - swooning and - Baird, he was _giggling._ And when I told him I needed to get up, I swear it seemed like he was on the verge of tears. It's as if -"

"He's fallen head over heels in love with you overnight." Baird finished. Cassandra blushed a deep red, but she didn't even bother to try and deny it. Baird knew there was more to what the girl was telling her, but she didn't push it. If it was anything truly important, Cassandra wouldn't hesitate sharing.

"What's happened?"

"First we need to find Ezekiel and Jenkins." Baird assessed.

"They're missing?"

"Maybe." Baird walked to the last remaining door which Ezekiel had claimed the night before. "Jones should still be -" Baird opened the door and stopped, not sure how to proceed with the scene in front of her.

There was Ezekiel Jones, sprawled out on his bed, dead to the world as a loud snore rattled the frame. And on the floor right beside the bed, was Jenkins.

"Oh my God!" Cassandra screamed and she started to run forward, but Baird caught her and held her back. "What are you doing?"

"We have to be careful. I think they're just asleep." Baird said slowly.

"What is going on, Baird?" Cassandra said, and the small tremor in her voice betrayed the fact that while she was trying her hardest to remain calm and collected, she was freaking out.

"I don't know." Baird said. Suddenly, there was a loud crash from back out in the Annex that had both women scrambling. "What in the hell?!"

"Eve!" Flynn Carson was running towards her, trying to buckle his pants that were on inside out and backwards. "My darling, my love! You have been gone from my side far too long!"

"Cass!" From the other end of the row of doors came Jacob Stone, his hair in disarray, and his pants put on properly, but completely shirtless. "Sweetheart, I know you told me to wait, but I just couldn't hold back any longer. My arms are empty without you in them, rose."

"Um.." Cassandra flushed again, but she held her ground standing with Baird. "Sorry, Baird and I were, uh, just looking for Jenkins and Ezekiel, and -"

"WHAT?" both men yelled in shocking unison. "YOU WENT TO FIND OTHER MEN?"

"Cassandra, you are my true love. No other sun shines as bright, no other star delivers perfect wishes, than you. You are my everything - why would you turn away from me?" Stone said, and just as Eve noticed earlier with Flynn, he began to whimper beyond his own control, his eyes becoming bright with tears.

"Eve, I have given you all of my own heart. There is nothing before you, nothing more important than our love. Would you throw that away?" Flynn cried out.

"Uh, excuse us for a moment." Cassandra said, and pulled Baird back into the room with the unconscious Jenkins and Jones. As soon as they shut the door, both women looked at each other with equal expressions of shock.

"This has to be magic." Baird said.

"Or maybe the boys finally tapped into their romantic side?" Cassandra hedged, and Eve gave her a look that clearly called the bluff. "Yeah, definitely magic."

"Look, Cassandra, obviously, after this one, you and Stone should have a real long talk. Clearly some things need to be discussed, and I get you don't want to talk about that to me, which is fine. As long as both of you figure out how you feel towards each other and act on that decision."

"W-What?" Cassie blinked.

"We've learned over and over again that with this job - time is short. We have to make the most of what matters most. I can tell, even before this stupid spell, that Stone cares a lot for you. Talk to him. But after we figure out who the hell managed to get into the Library."

"Okay. Yeah, okay, I can - wait, what?!" Cassandra yelped. "Someone got into the Library? Who? And how?"

"Why don't we ask our favorite boys what they might know, since they are so eager to help?" Baird rolled her eyes and opened the door again.

"Evie!" Flynn cooed.

"Shut up for a second and listen." Baird felt bad for snapping but this was not the time to be gentle. She was sure Flynn would understand later….possibly. "We need your help."

"Anything!" Flynn jumped and ran forward only to fall on his knees at her feet. "Give me a task and I shall prove my worth to you, fair Lady."

"I can be of more assistance than him, lovely Cassandra." Stone came and dropped to one knee in front of Cassandra, taking her hands in his. "Tell me only what you wish, and I will claim it for you." Cassandra looked at Baird for a prompt, but she only shrugged.

"I honestly didn't think this through very well." Baird whispered. "I mean, the best people to ask about this are either under a strong love spell or completely unconscious - which I'm assuming might be another spell."

"Okay, so we break it apart. Piece by piece. Just like we would do with Normal Jake and Normal Flynn." Cassandra reasoned. "So, let's assume, for the moment, we are dealing with one of the remaining twenty-two gods. And this is clearly a love spell. Which of the gods deals with love and affection and infatuation?"

"I know the answer, dearest!" Stone crowed. "We lost Eros from the box. He goes by Cupid or Erotas, and he is the son of the beauteous Aphrodite, though her legendary looks hold nothing on you, I swear it. "

"Alright, enough with that." Cassandra sighed. "But at least we have a start. 's got to be it. I mean, he _is_ loose from the box and this seems like our most logical bet. It fits."

"At the very least, it's all we have to go on and it will have to do." Baird reasoned. "Okay, Stone, what else can you tell us about Eros?"

"Everything you and my lady love desire." Stone blinked bashfully, a dopey smile on his face. "He is a child of chaos, reveling in his artful acts of love. He carries a bow and arrow, targeting humans and making them fall in love with the first person they see. Some dispute, however, is brought up over that fact, instead believing that whoever is struck by the arrow of Cupid becomes overwhelmed with their true love."

"Child of chaos?" Baird exclaimed, at the same time Cassandra squeaked, "True love?"

"I told you, after this, serious talking."

"Oh yeah."

"Okay, listen up, you two." Baird addressed the afflicted men. "Somewhere in this Library, Eros must have slipped in. He's hiding. We need to find him."

"Finally, a task I can be the victor of!" Flynn leapt to his feet, already running for the stairs. "Do not fret, Goddess Guardian, I shall find the winged cherub and bring his thus forth!"

"I shall find him and bring him for my auburn rose!" Stone bellowed and he was off after him as well.

"I really hope they find Eros." Cassandra said. "I don't think I can take much more of the Shakespearian romance lingo, as romantic as it is to be Jake's auburn rose."

"I swear, I'm going to beat the two of them over the head with a mantelpiece in turn for all the sappy whining. Ugh." Baird gagged. "I'm a woman, and I love romance and all that, but what _this_ is, is just too much."

* * *

It took them a half hour to find Eros. Cassandra and Baird were pouring over books, trying to figure out how they might be able to gain the advantage on this one when something glass broke somewhere from deep in the Library followed by a strange cry.

'What -" Baird started when suddenly something dropped straight from the second floor and landed with a crash on the center table.

"Oh my!" Cassandra gasped.

"THAT WASN'T NICE!"

Both women froze as the bundle - which was actually something, or someone, wrapped in a tapestry from one of the various hallways from upstairs - screamed and thrashed.

"Ladies! We have achieved victory over our adversary!" Flynn called from up above and he and Stone waved proudly.

"Quick, Cassandra, the box!" Baird ordered. "Before he manages to untangle himself!"

"Oh, come on!" the bundle, Eros, whined. "You really are no fun!"

"You call this fun? Putting our friends under a spell and driving us wild?"

"What do you expect, I'm the child of chaos! And you have to admit, they are pretty romantic!"

"But that's just it!" Cassandra wailed, running back to the table with Pandora's Box firmly in her grasp. "It's not their feelings, is it? It's the spell."

"Oh, honey. Of course it's their feelings. I just…amplified it a little. I was only having fun!"

"Well, fun's over. How did you manage to even get in here?" Baird snarled, pressing her elbow firmly where she knew the solar plexus would be. On a normal human male, it would be enough to reduce them to tears, but it only seemed to succeed in keeping the God still for the moment.

"I was hanging with my friend Crius a few days ago when you all showed up and took him away from me. And then, when I went to Dionysus for some entertainment and a few humans to make swoon, you came and took that away too! So when you came back here, I just…slipped in. Figured you might deserve a little rest and relaxation….and I figured since you ruined my fun, I could use you to make my own."

"Undo it. Now." Baird ordered.

"No point. It will wear off once I'm gone." Eros sounded weary. "I know what you plan to do, and I can't say I'm pleased. This is the most fun I've had in eons."

"Isn't there anyone you love?" Cassandra said. "Anyone at all?"

He was silent for a while, and Baird wondered whether he would even bother to answer them at all. But, to their surprise, he did. It was quiet, almost as if he was caught in one of his own spells, but he was completely sane. This was his raw emotions, and Baird motioned for Cassandra to bring the box closer, just in case.

"My wife…Psyche. She's still there….and my daughter, Hedone. They are the most precious things to me."

"You wouldn't want someone to mess with them, with their emotions, would you?" Cassandra said. "I understand the feelings though you're trapped, and I understand how thrilling it is to finally be free. But you have people who love you, and who you love. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for them, and they will do the same for you."

And before he could answer, before anything else could come between them, Cassandra reach forward and touched the box to Eros. There was a flash of light, screams, and then - nothing.

"Cassandra? Are you alright?" Baird called out.

"Yes, I'm fine. Are you?"

"Yes. Who -"

"EVE!"

"COLONEL BAIRD!"

"CASSANDRA! BAIRD!"

"CASSIE!"

The four men suddenly appeared out of nowhere and swarmed them. Baird looked at Cassandra in surprise and saw that she was just as taken aback.

"What happened?" Jenkins sputtered. "One moment I was coming to tell you that the Library's internal alarm system was activated and then - nothing."

Baird looked at Cassandra again, and saw that Stone was holding her arm with a questioning look. Cassandra was looking back and forth from him to her, and Eve realized that he probably didn't remember a thing either. But that didn't mean he didn't feel it.

"We really need to talk."


	8. The Fae

**A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to update! These chapters take forever, believe me. On the bright side, there is some major Jassandra in this chapter and I'm so excited for you to read it!**

 **Also, there's a little Easter Egg from Twilight in here. I don't own it, I just thought it fit and it would be a little funny.**

 **Thanks to my man for helping me with the plot of this chapter. Love you lots!**

 **Please continue to review and I hope you enjoy! It's very long, so I hope you read it all.**

* * *

Cassandra Cillian was, by nature, a very nervous person. With her childhood of science fairs and special tutors and mapped out future, it hadn't left a lot of time for making friends, leaving her a little less than socially awkward around other people, and with her brain grape giving her hallucinations and uncontrollable spasms, she had been isolated and afraid of reaching out to people for fear of what they might do, whether it was ridicule her or leave her. It was always one or the other. So she was nervous, and quirky and she blabbered and rambled and didn't get a lot of cues that were thrown her way, though she tried her hardest.

But it wasn't until she found the Library where all of that didn't seem to matter anymore. No, she had somehow found people who liked her in spite of and because of her neurotic tendencies and her babbling and her quirky twitchiness and who loved her without conditions, knowing that her days were numbered. They treated her as herself, not as another dying girl. It was….wonderful.

And of course, she wasn't dying anymore and her friendships had grown into these amazing bonds and perhaps even something more….though she had no idea what was going on there.

That was a lie. If she had any doubts about her feelings, and about Stone's feelings for her, it was all wiped away after that stunt Eros pulled earlier that morning. Cassandra blushed and tucked herself deeper into the couch she was curled upon as she remembered the look of utter adoration in Jake's eyes, and how they figured out that Eros only made someone fall for their true love, or something like that. Even now, hours later, her heart still fluttered at the thought of being somebody's, especially Jake's, true love.

And because her heart was still fluttering, she was hiding. Yes, hiding. She knew she and Jacob had a long, long talk coming that was very overdue, but she was terrified. She had never had….what she and Jake have, and it was altogether kind of scary. So she had hidden herself away in the far upstairs corner of the Library, on this little old red plush couch, until she could think about what she was going to say to him without swooning.

"I'll be here forever then." Cassandra grumbled.

"Want some company?"

Cassandra jumped and let out a squeal of surprise as the much though about country accent came from in front of her, in the shadows of the bookshelves. Jacob Stone was standing right in front of her, hesitantly holding the framing bookshelves, his eyes ducked low. He was clearly shy, and Cassandra knew how well he could always read her. He thought she was uncomfortable, that she wanted to be alone….and he was asking, in his way, permission for him to be there. What a gentleman. Cassandra felt her heart do backflips in her chest and she bit her lip. Jake, misinterpreting it, duked his head.

"I'm sorry, Cassie. I figured you'd want to be alone after all of that, but I needed to ask if you were alright. I needed to know if…what I said, or what I did…..if I upset you -"

"Jake." Cassandra cut him off, a little surprised. "You - you didn't upset me. You did nothing wrong. Eros was the one who -"

"That's not what I mean, Cassie." Jake said and slowly, shyly, he took a step forward towards her. "Eros might have caused quite a bit of havoc, but he didn't make me or Flynn do or say anything we didn't mean."

"Huh?" Cassandra gaped.

"What I'm trying to tell you," Jake breathed, "is that, everything I said under Cupid's arrow….when I told you I loved you, how beautiful you were….all of that…..I meant it. I mean it."

"Oh." Cassandra couldn't say anything more. She was too shocked, and Jake took her silence as permission to continue.

"I know there were issues in the past. Our past. The thing with me and trust…well, it took a while for that to pass. But it didn't take as long as I thought. I told you once before, I like you, Cassie. I just do. And every day, with your cute little outfits and your innocent outlook on life and your boundless energy, I started liking you more and more. And then I started really liking the way you called me "Jake" or "Jacob" and not "Stone." I started really liking your smile, and the scent of strawberries and cream. I liked you how really read my papers, not skimmed through them like everyone else. I liked how we worked together, and I found myself wanting to keep being together. But it wasn't until you collapsed a few months ago from your tumor that I realized what I was feeling. Cassandra, the thought that you would die without knowing how I felt nearly killed me. All I could think about was how I missed my chance to touch you one more time, or hear your laugh, or see you smile. I love you, Cassandra Cillian. I love you so much it hurts. And that's why I have to apologize. I know you've been avoiding talking to me, and I can only assume it's because I misinterpreted signals and I made you feel uncomfortable. That wasn't my intention at all, and I'd rather keep you as a friend than ruin anything we could have, especially if you don't share the same feelings."

That was the most the art historian had said…..ever. Cassandra could hardly believe even a word, but she was staring right into his crystal blue eyes and saw the seer vulnerability and trust he had….the fluttering in her heart blew up full speed until she was almost hyperventilating. Could he really be feeling all of that for her? Could he possibly…..?

"Cassandra, please, say something." Jake's voice cracked, and that was the push she needed to do something decidedly impulsive, but something she had been fantasizing about for years. Instead of answering him, Cassandra burst forward, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. His lips were soft, a contrast to the usually hard words he spoke, and she pressed hers firmly against his, and within a second he responded. His arms were soon going around her waist, drawing her closer to him. After what seemed like an eternity, they finally pulled away from each other, both breathing hard, and, Cassandra was sure she was blushing furiously.

"Either that means what I think it means, or you have quite the way of telling someone to fuck off." Jake said breathlessly. Cassandra laughed and pressed her forehead to his shoulder.

"I love you, too, Jake." She whispered into him. "I loved you since that first day when you helped me through one of my spells. It broke my heart when you told me you could never trust me again, and I have been working to earn it ever since, and…..I want to be with you. Always. Every time we go out, I want to be with you, as my partner, because I know you'll listen, really listen, and you treat me like I'm special, but the good kind of special not the other kind that gets you teased or thrown in lockers. I feel pretty when you look at me, and I feel happy when you smile at me. I like the way you smell, and the way you write, and everything about you makes me want to hold you like this forever. I love you, Jacob Stone. And I know we have a long way to go. But I know the odds, and I think we have a real chance."

She had never said so much in one go without it being a tumor induced babble. But the way Jake was looking at her now….she should make romantic speeches more often. Jake opened his mouth to say something when a shrill whistle echoed throughout the Library.

 _"_ _STONE. CASSANDRA. EZEKIEL. JENKINS. FLYNN. CENTER ANNEX. NOW."_ Baird's all powerful voice thundered monstrously in the cavernous Annex.

"Duty calls." Cassandra sighed. She moved away from Jake, but in a flash, he had dragged her forward again and kissed her chastely on the lips.

"We'll continue this talk later." he said. "But you're right. Saving the world twice before Friday, after all."

"It's already been twice before Friday." Cassandra groused, but she let herself be lifted from his lap and they descended the stairs back to the center of the Annex.

* * *

"The Fae." Baird wasted no time once all of them were gathered together again.

"Fae?" Ezekiel asked. "Never heard of them."

"Not surprising, Mr. Jones." Jenkins said. "The Fae is a generic term used to encompass all beings of the natural magical world, usually towards the most ancient women who encompass the flow of nature's magic, specifically."

"Like….fairies?" Cassandra perked up. "I've always wanted to meet a real fairy, like Tinkerbell. Ooh, or the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty. They were nice."

"Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are not of the usual mold of the Fae." Jenkins said.

"Wait they're REAL?!"

"But the Fae aren't from Greek mythology." Jacob interrupted. "They're from Roman. What are they doing in Pandora's Box?"

"As I was saying," Jenkins glared at the two of them, "the term Fae is mostly used as genetic term, ever since the original Fae from the Roman era began interbreeding with a series of species among the Grecian spirits. Now, their blood is mixed with dryads and nymphs and elves….all the creatures of the natural world."

"I still don't understand." Cassandra said. "Who was in the box?"

"The Gods and Goddesses in the box are the original makers of the earth, and every aspect of it and human nature. Stars, woods, lust, chastity, violence, volcanoes and earth's forces….each God and Goddess is a personification of a natural force. Now while the Gods and Goddesses are technically the offspring of two specific creators, the more dominant Gods, they were also the creation of beings more ancient than that. The original Fae. These original Fae belong neither to Roman nor Greek mythology, but they are responsible for the creation of both. Thus, they were cursed along with the rest of Olympus."

"Who are they?" Baird asked. This time, Jenkins opened his mouth but didn't answer. Instead, he looked to Flynn.

"The thing is, no one knows." Flynn said slowly. "I mean, we can locate them fine. Locate the patterns, magical disturbances, check where the book sends us. But there are three of them. Always three. They travel in packs for protection. Each one has a weakness that happens to be another's strength."

"Great." Baird said. "Just what we need. An unstoppable trio."

"But if they're that easy to locate, how come no one knows who they are?" Cassandra asked again.

"They're not the most ancient magical beings for nothing." Jenkins said. "While the clues are easy to spot, figuring out who they are is not. Their appearances change at will, and, since we don't know they're names, we have no way to address them."

"So how can we draw them out?" Jake said. "There has got to be a way to bait and trap these gals. You said each of them has a weakness. Do you know what?"

"Well…sort of." Jenkins drawled. As he spoke, he moved to one drawer that had been untouched in the explosion days before. He opened it an pulled out a long sheet of parchment which a cut of tapestry was pinned to."You see, the only image recorded of the there ancient Fae states that there is one dressed in emerald, one dressed in white, and one dressed in gold. The emerald Fae is the one that has a direct control over nature, and she is strongest in the spring when everything is in full bloom. Her weakness comes from the cold. The one in white however, is strongest in the cold. She has a direct control with the weather, specifically the ice and snow and wind. Her weakness is the heat. But the third dressed in gold has a direct connection to the sun and the stars and moon. Her weakness is anything more material and less celestial, which is where the emerald Fae comes in. It's a cycle."

"And practically impossible to break." Baird moaned.

"What if we separate them?" Jake said slowly.

"That's just as impossible." Flynn sighed. "There is no way any of them would leave each other for a second. They're strongest together. It's how they're survived this long without incident."

"Well, do you have a better idea than trying to get them apart?" Jake snapped. "Cause from where I'm standing, it's the best chance we got. They're too strong together, as you said, so why not get them apart?'

"Alright, enough. Stone, cool it. Easy, Flynn." Baird barked. "Look, let's get there, assess the threat, see if we can't find them before we make a plan. Jenkins, where did the book say the Fae went?"

"A little town in Washington State. Forks. Dreary little town, it is, and a magnet for all sorts of magical beings."

"You mean there might be more than just the three Fae there?" Ezekiel spoke up. "Are we going to be dealing with an army?"

"Oh, don't be so worried, Mr. Jones." Jenkins reassured him. "There's only two clans worth noting in that area, and neither will cause you any trouble as long as you're quick and careful. But just in case, try to avoid the beach. And the woods."

"Wait, what?"

"No time to dawdle." Jenkins said, handing Ezekiel a backpack. "Here's the Box."

"Libraians. Door. Now." Baird snapped as she lit the backdoor up. Without waiting for a response, she leapt through it. As soon as she was gone, the three LIT's eyed Flynn.

"What?"

"What did you do?" Cassandra frowned.

"What?" Flynn snorted. "I did nothing."

"Well, clearly you did something, cause Baird is pissed." Jake shrugged. "I'm just saying, man. That woman can hold a grudge." Jake turned and grabbed Cassandra's hand. With a pleased smile, which she returned quickly, they leapt through the door, with Flynn and Ezekiel right behind them.

* * *

Forks, Washington was absolutely dismal. That was the first thing Jacob Stone noticed as he landed in a stinking puddle on the outskirts of the wet, green town. There was no other way to describe it. Everything was saturated with rain, and even in the country where he had grown up, Jacob Stone had never seen so much _life._ Plant life, that is. People….he shuddered. They seemed just as cold and grey as the rest of the place.

"First things first, we find the local police. See if they can't clue us in on anything strange." Baird assessed.

"Well, what did the book say?" Ezekiel asked. "Doesn't it usually come with some kind of clue? Instructions? A push in the right direction?"

"Usually." Baird nodded grimly. "This time was more vague than I've ever seen, and that's saying something for the Library's standards. All it said was Forks, Washington, and something about this meadow high up in the mountains surrounding the area. Apparently it has a knack for attracting all sorts of….wildlife."

"And by wildlife, you don't think it means -"

"I don't think it was referring to deer and moose, no, Jones." Baird snapped and even Jacob raised his eyebrows. "Jenkins did say there were "clans" in this town. I'd bet that what he's not saying is that those clans have been here for a long while."

"Are we going after them?" Jacob asked. His gut was telling him that of there was anything strange out in these parts, it was their job to eradicate it. But he thought, suddenly, of that town that they had passed through years ago, where Nicola Tesla had trapped their spirits, their bodies in the lights. How it was unnatural yet how they had meant no harm at all. They had wanted peace. Jenkins had said the clans wouldn't bother them. Maybe all they wanted was some peace as well.

"No." Baird looked at him gently, as if reading his thoughts. "We'll leave them alone. For now, let's focus on the ones wreaking havoc. We have to find that meadow."

They trekked their way to the start of the main backdoor had dumped them from a Port - O- Potty on a currently vacant construction site and according to a sign, they were less than two miles from where the town actually seemed inhabited. Ezekiel walked ahead, with Baird and Flynn right behind, leaving Cassandra and Jacob to bring up the rear. While this was an important mission, it was also quiet and relaxing, as if they weren't about to fight some magical entity and capture them in a magical box prison.

"You ever think," Jacob said suddenly, "what might have happened if…any of this….hadn't happened?"

"You mean if we hadn't chosen to become Librarians?" Cassandra asked. "Didn't we all already do that? And we still ended up here."

"No, I mean…" Jacob sighed. "We had a choice at one point. To go and stay gone. We could have kept doing our own things, from our old life. If Baird had turned down being Guardian, or if one of us just left, right there at the beginning and said no to it all."

"Jake, do you regret…" Cassandra said worriedly but was cut off almost immediately.

"No. No, darling, I don't regret a single thing over these last few years." Jacob reached out and gently took her hand in his. "I was just thinking. If I had left….if I had decided to go my own way….I never would have met you. I never would have fallen in love, and I never would have found that I could be happy being myself. Here I am, with all of that, and all because everything happened the way it did. And I wonder….how is that possible?"

"Magic." Cassandra smiled as he rolled his eyes. "Seriously, though. Perhaps the Library always knew what would happen. Perhaps the events that played out to bring us to one another did so for a reason. Perhaps Fate -"

"Hey! Look, the police station!"

Ezekiel's frantic shout brought them out of their own little reverie and back to the present. They had finally made it to town, and it seemed that they had somehow found their way to the small police station - which was jam packed full of cars and news vans.

"What on Earth..?" Flynn muttered to himself. "I doubt this is normal."

'Come on. We have to talk to someone." Baird said, strolling right up to the barrier where policemen were herding reporters back. "Excuse me, sir. Hi there, we -"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but stay behind this line. I won't tell you again." the tall man barked. "And that goes for your little cronies back there. I swear, if any of y'all try jumping this goddamn thing again, I don't care what the Chief says, I will shoot you."

"Officer. Officer!" Flynn ran forward, a breathlessly rehearsed chuckle selling the bit of a harmless fool. "I think there has been some kind of misunderstanding. You see, we are the Librarians."

A briefly glazed look went over the policeman's eyes and suddenly his rocky exterior melted away.

"Of course, from the botanical society branch. I apologize. I forgot you had requested our records weeks ago. Right through here - back, you dogs! Damn reporters. Yes, all of you now. Come on."

"Quite the commotion here today." Cassandra remarked as she sidled her way towards the station. "Big event?"

"You could say that. Don't suppose you caught the news yet?"

"No. We were on assignment and only juts got back." Flynn bluffed. "Haven't had much time for catching the local news and such."

"Ah. Well, it's been a series of isolated incidents up in the woods at the edge of Forks." the officer explained as they walked into the station. "At first we thought it was the coyotes, or wolves. Deer were coming up dead and mutilated all around the area. Then the sounds of thunder, or rockslides, despite reports of shaking and monstrous sounds from the nearby houses. And then the weather has been on the fritz for weeks now. Sunny one day and blistering cold the next. Now, as close to Seattle as we are, we know our share of crappy weather. But this kind of fluctuation has teams from D.C and Meteorology coming in from everywhere. Think we could be on the verge of some kind of natural disaster. Even the woods have started biting back."

"Biting back?" Cassandra said.

"Normally the woods round here are pretty safe, as you know. But lately it seems as though something wants us out. And it's not taking "no" for an answer."

They were in the station now, which, contrary to the hubbub outside, was dead quiet. One man stood alone in front of a whiteboard that was covered with photographs and nearly illegible notes.

"Chief Swan." the officer announced. "Got some folks from the library's botanical society branch here to see some reports."

"Thanks, Hendrickson." the man, Chief Swan, said as he turned to face them. He was young, maybe in his late thirties, though the bags under his eyes made his appear older. He had a small trimmed mustache that was as dark as his hair and he was physically fit, though a little let out around the middle. "Charlie Swan, chief of this here establishment. How are you folks?"

"Good thanks." Baird said.

"I hear that right? You want to see some reports?" Charlie Swan asked. "Well, what kind of reports are you botanical folks after?"

"Well, there's not so much reports as they are maps." Baird said. "Directions, really, to a site we actually have been dying to, uh, catalog."

'Oh yeah?"

"Yes. It's a meadow, a few miles north of the town, up in the woods."

'The woods? Haven't you folks heard? It's not exactly safe up there."

"With all due respect, Chief Swan, nothing worthwhile is every done by being safe." Cassandra said, and the chief looked at her as if he was seeing someone he knew in her. Jacob watched as no one said a word for several minutes. Finally, the chief sighed and went over to an overflowing filing cabinet and began ruffling through some papers.

"You and my daughter, Bella, got a lot in common, young lady. Both of you could learn a thing or two about safety. But I guess what makes you happy isn't always that, is it. Man." Charlie Swan came back a few minutes later, and, with a heavy sigh, hand over a much folded piece of paper. "Here's a trail map. And good luck to you."

"Thank you." Ezekiel said. "Believe me, we'll need it."

* * *

The meadow was beautiful. It was covered edge to edge, in a perfect circle, with blooming wildflowers, all shades of white and yellow and purple. Cassandra could envision how romantic this space could be in the summer, with the sunlight shining down, the comfort of someone's arms around her as they lay in the grass.

"Hm." Baird said. "Odd."

"Odd?" Cassandra scoffed. "How about beautiful? How about enchanting? Just look ow the sun lights every flower, how soft and warm the grass is. Oh I could just lay down here-"

"Cassandra, stop and think" Baird barked as Cassandra knelt to the ground. "The sunlight? It's nearly six in the evening. The sun was setting back in town, and it's like it's noon here. Not to mention how it was cold and raining back there, and here everything seems to be dry as a bone and as hot as summer. It's nearly March, but surely it's still too cold for these flowers to be in full bloom already."

 _Very clever, Guardian._

The five of them jumped as a cool voce echoed, seemingly unspoken, in the the space.

"Hello?" Flynn said, stepping forward. "Anyone there?"

 _Oh, come now. Don't be so ordinary._

"It's the Fae." Jacob yelled.

 _Very good._

Suddenly, there were three women standing in front of them. The first was dressed in a deep forest green. She was clearly the eldest, as the hair that hung down to her knees was grey with vines woven through them. She was shorter than the other two, and slightly bent, as if under a great weight. The second was younger, perhaps with the appearance of someone in her forties. Her dress was pure white but her hair was a shocking blue and cut close to her scalp. The third woman had the appearance of a teenager. Her dress was short and bright yellow, and her had no hair at all. Her skin was almost golden, shining under the streaming light from above.

 _We are the Fae, as ancient as all time. What draws you here, Librarians? Why interrupt our cause?_

"Your cause?" Baird asked.

 _Surely you know of the unnaturalness that resides here in this town. This haven of nature and unfounded beauty, a perfect circle of our three units of power. Surely you must know what abominations reside here. \_

"The clans." Flynn said.

 _Bloodsuckers and skin changers, to be exact._

"I don't understand." Jacob said. "What's going on here?"

"They're the ones causing all the issues for Forks." Baird said. "They're trying to destroy it, drive out the clans."

"But why?" Cassandra said.

"Because it's the perfect haven." Baird said softly. Quickly she turned her back on the three Fae and huddled to her team. "They said it together. This is the perfect match for their powers. All the nature, how cold and dreary the town is but how nice and warm it is up here…they can have their strengths and weaknesses together. It's their ideal spot."

 _Precisely. Except it's been tainted with the mark of those bloodsucking vampires. They may not attack humans, but who gave them the right to mark the beasts of the forest with their fangs?_

The green clad Fae bristled with anger and she took a step or two away from her sisters.

 _My animals of nature have been heedlessly slain, their bodies useless. Not to mention the skin changers marking their territory in what does not belong to them. They may inhabit the wolves form, but they are not of this wood. They must leave as well._

"We have to get close enough to touch them with the box." Baird said, motioning at the backpack Flynn wore.

"How?"

"Try and unbalance them." Baird suggested. "If we can separate them, or turn them against each other. We don't have that many options to choose from, so do what you can."

"Alright." Stone nodded. "Cassandra and Baird, take Greenie. Jones and Flynn, talk to Frost, and I'll take Sunshine."

"Jake, are you sure that's a good idea?" Cassandra couldn't help but let a little bit of her fear leak through. She knew it was irrational (after all they'd been through, it was against the odds for them to fail now) but when she factored in her feelings for Jacob, and his for her, and all that they talked about, she couldn't help being scared that something might happen. As if he could read her mind, Jake smiled at her and came closer. He softly touched her cheek with his palm.

"I'll be okay, Cassie. I promise."

"How can you be sure?"

"I just….know." Jake shrugged. "Just like I know you'll be fine. And we'll be fine together."

"Okay." Cassandra nodded. "Let's do this."

 _Clever little Librarians, you are._

The five of them jumped in surprise, turning to look at the three smirking Fae.

 _What? Didn't think we could hear you? Ignorant as well as clever. My, you're full of controversy._

"Alright, I've had enough of the mind-telepathy crap." Baird strode forward a few steps. "If you're so all powerful and all knowing, why don't you enlighten us a bit, huh? Use your words. Who are you? I want names."

 **"** **You insolent brat."** The one in white snarled, a sudden blast of cold wind hitting them all full force. They all flinched, but none of them moved. **"How dare you try to command the three immortal Fae as if you were God himself."**

 **"** **Hush, Weta."** the elder green Fae scolded, and she eyed them as if she were their grandmother and trying not to be proud of their brashness. **"They can do us no real harm. She is Weta, I am Forta -"**

 **"** **And I am Circa."** the final yellow Fae said shortly. **"You got your names. Leave us be."**

"We can't do that." Flynn said. "We've come here to…well, to put you back where you belong."

 **"** **Excuse me?"** the green Fae, Forta, said, and her demeanor became colder and less grandmotherly in an instant.

"What he means to say," Jake said, "is that your plan to eradicate this entire town is a failed one. Yes, there are supernatural beings most likely living here. But they are everywhere. They exist in the world. Magic exists. It's a part of nature, isn't it? Magic? That's what you are, right - or rather, that's what Forta is. You two are more like her sub servants."

 **"** **WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?"** Weta screeched, flying forward in front of her sisters.

"Am I wrong?" Jake said, and Cassandra clearly saw the markers that told her he was feigning sincerity. Brilliant.

 **"** **Yes, you're wrong."** Circa said softly. **"We are nobody's servants, least of all to our elder sister. She may be that, elder, but she is not our governess, nor our commander."**

"Oh, well you could have fooled me." Ezekiel came to stand next to Jake. "No, I agree with this bloke here. Forta is definitely the leader of you three. I mean, she's clearly the most powerful, what with having the ability to control all of nature. I mean, she basically controls the Earth."

 **"** **She would be nothing without me."** Weta scoffed.

 **"** **Nor I."** Circa said.

 **"** **I'm sure I'd manage."** Forta spat, suddenly rearing her anger to her sisters.

"I'd have to disagree with you boys." Baird suddenly said. "I think Weta has better leadership qualities. I mean, look at her from a military standpoint. Cold, calculating, determined. She doesn't let emotions cloud her judgment. Lord knows we could do with a little less emotion now and then."

 **"** **Ha. See that, Forta? I could be in control."** Weta said.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Flynn said, turning to Baird. "We could do with less emotion? What the hell?"

"Not now, Flynn." Baird hissed. "We've got them fighting. Just another push or two and we might have them."

 **"** **What about me?"** Circa said. **"No doubt I could manage us quite well."**

 **"** **Please."** Forta laughed. **"You have no backbone, dearie. Weta, yes. She is a formidable opponent to my charges, but you are nothing more than a lazy lizard on a hot rock."**

 **"** **There's not much you can do that either of us can't."** Weta lashed out. **"Useless little faerie."**

Circa displayed no outward emotion, but there was a change in the energy in the air. She stared at her two sisters for a minute longer before turning her cold, impassive gaze to the four Librarians and the Guardian, who were waiting patiently.

 _Toss the Box in the center of the field. Then cover your eyes, mortals. This will be painful._

"What?" Ezekiel said. "What was that? I don't -"

"Jones. Do what she says." Baird said. "Quickly. Everyone else - run!"

Cassandra reached out and grabbed Jake's hand, clutching it tightly as they turned and ran for the cover of the woods. She glanced back once to see Ezekiel throwing Pandora's Box into the middle of the field before hightailing it after them. She saw Circa whip around to face her sisters, who were only just beginning to notice what was happening. Cassandra saw them open their mouths, saw Circa's hands raise, and then there was a blinding, searing hot white light that seemed to explode from that one woman like a nuclear blast. It knocked her to the ground and she felt the heat wave sear across her skin. She felt hands grab her head and force it into something hard and malleable.

"I got you. Close your eyes tight, baby. Close them real tight." Jake's voice kept saying in her ear and she realized he was holding her to his chest. She pressed her face closer and let him hold her, taking solace in the smell and the feel of him. After a while, she felt the heat lessen and let her eyes slowly blink open.

The field was unchanged. Cassandra stared in shock. She figured it would all be burnt to black, but it was all untouched. In the center of the field, Pandora's Box sat as if nothing had happened and, as she glanced at the uncomprehending faces of her team, she slowly walked to it.

 _It's alright._

Cassandra froze and looked up. There, just above the Box, was Circa. She was just as unchanged as everything else, except perhaps there was a tiredness around her eyes.

"What…" Cassandra tried to speak.

 _I sent my sisters back to the realm we escaped from. I will return shortly as well. This has been…a learning experience I think. One we needed, and one that will not be repeated._

"Why did you help us?" Baird said softly. "You have no reason to."

 _My reason is that we would have eventually destroyed ourselves, and this planet along with us. Originally, we were meant to be the guardians of this place. But I see that it already has guardians, and you are more than capable to keep this world alive and filled with goodness. And that is why we cannot remain._

"Thank you." Cassandra said.

Circa looked at her for a long moment. As she did so, she slowly sank from her floating position out of the air until she was standing on the ground just inches from touching Pandora's Box.

 **"** **Be careful, Librarians. Not all of us will be so cooperative. You have only barely begun."**

With another flash, this one not as bright, Circa was gone.


	9. Gaia

**A/N: Another update? So soon? Wow, I must really love those reviews you guys are leaving. Although, I would love to see some more….just saying! Maybe a few more….please?**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Librarians.**

 **Please continue to review!**

* * *

It had been a week. One full week since the capture of The Fae, and nothing since. Not even a sparkle from one of the three clippings books, the larger one still being in burnt disrepair from the initial opening of Pandora's Box. And while it was nice to have this slight reprieve to let the six of them get their heads back on straight, none of them were even remotely relaxed. In fact, they were almost more strung up than before.

Twenty Gods, Goddesses, and mythical creatures alike were out there, loose upon the world doing Heaven only knew and they had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a sparkle, not a flicker, not a wink from any source that could help them figure out where one if them might strike next, or when. They had gone back to flying blind, and it was -

"Too quiet." Flynn muttered to Jenkins as they poured over yet another Greek mythology textbook. "It's been a week, Jenkins, and it is far too quiet. With that many unleashed deities, we should be overwhelmed with magic and chaos, tsunamis and lightening storms and volcanic eruptions and sinkholes, but not…..nothing!"

"I agree, Mr. Carson." Jenkins mused. "It is rather disquieting." He sighed and shut the book, knowing it would be just as useless as the fifteen before it. The immortal knight glanced around at the others who were spread out to different corners of the Library. Baird was at her desk, flipping through a list of the most famed locations around the world that were said to have deep connections to Greek lore, hoping something might jump out. Jenkins caught Flynn staring at her too, as he had been doing for the last three hours. He smirked, remembering how the two had fought after coming back from defeating The Fae.

* * *

 _"_ _If you have something to say to me, then say it, Eve. Don't be all-all Guardiany and pretend like there's nothing wrong because I know there is."_

 _"_ _There's nothing! Okay? I said that so they would start fighting, and it worked didn't it?"_

 _"_ _Yeah, but it came from somewhere, didn't it, Eve? You must have been thinking along some level -"_

 _"_ _I'm scared, alright! Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm scared, Flynn. I'm scared at how much I love you, and I look and I see how much I love each member of this team, this family, and how much Stone and Cassandra love each other. I mean, they think they're being subtle, but come on, it's written all over their faces every time they so much as look at each other. There is so much love and devotion we have here and I'm scared that it might just be what kills us."_

* * *

And of course, they kissed and made up - well, they did much more than kiss. The Library wasn't all soundproof, and Jenkins spent most of the beginning of this week avoiding the two of them. He knew Flynn and Colonel Baird were not through working through the issues they had, and with this case drawing their nerves up, tempers were bound to flare more than once. But for now, things had cooled and they were back to shooting google eyes and sappy smirks back and forth once again.

Jenkins moved his attention to the next team member, Mr. Jones, who was fast asleep, his face pillowed by a priceless copy of ancient spells. An idea was had that perhaps Pandora's Box had some sort of internal tracking system to help them locate the missing idols, or perhaps one could be placed on the box, but so far, no such luck.

A high pitched, and quickly quieted, giggle erupted from the other corner of the room, and Jenkins sent a raised eyebrow over to where the two new lovebirds were cozied together at Stone's desk. He and Cassandra were practically joined at the hip, and with good reason. The two of them had finally given way to the feelings that were simply bursting from each other and it was about damn time. A few more days and Jenkins would have owed Ezekiel twenty bucks. As it was, the thief still had yet to pay up to his end of the bet, being that Stone and Ms. Cillian were now officially a couple.

It was rather endearing, he thought. They truly did make each other happy. And like Baird said, there was so much adoration pouring from them for the other person that it was impossible not to notice how they cared for each other. It was in the way Jacob Stone would lean in to tell her something, or the way she would instinctively reach for him when she thought she found something worth noting. It was the way their eyes lit up when they caught the other person staring at them. It was true love, in it's purest form. And while Jenkins wished he could give them a romance worthy of King Arthur and Guinevere, they did not have the time.

"Mr. Stone. Ms. Cillian. Any luck with those books on your missing idols?" Jenkins cleared his throat, starling the two out of their little world.

"Uh, maybe, actually." Cassandra cleared her throat and leaping out of Stone's lap.

"Care to share that information with the rest of us?" Jenkins rolled his eyes.

"Well," Stone said with a cough, "we've been looking at the list of our remaining idols -"

"Yes. We still have Gaia, Hercules, the Ikhthyokentauroi, Jason, Koalemos, Lelantos, Medusa, Nyx, Oneiroi, Poseidon, Qilin, Rhea, Selene, Theia, Uranus, the Valkyries, Wendigo, Xanthus, Yuxa, and a Zlatorog." Cassandra listed at rapid speed.

"Thank you, darling." Stone said, though he was tight lipped and grim. "Anyways, the book listed all the signs we can look for when each one of them emerges. All that I can remember, and I'm sure you and Flynn have your own arsenal of knowledge with that stuff, but none of that helps if we don't get a signal from the books."

"I mean, Circa did say that the others wouldn't be as easy to find and catch." Cassandra mused. "Maybe this is what she was warning us about."

"You think the idols are hiding on purpose?" Baird asked, coming to stand with them, smacking Ezekiel on the head as she passed, startling him awake.

"I think it's unlikely that they've just gone dormant already." Jenkins said. "There is a possibility that they are simply warding their mischief from the Library. By now, they must have realized that their comrades had been captured and we are on to them."

"How?" Ezekiel yawned. "Are they spying on us?"

"They're Gods, Mr. Jones. They have no need to spy. They just know."

"Okay, so we know who we're missing and we know the signs to watch out for." Baird assessed. "But Stone is right. If the Gods are warding their magic from us, none of this helps if we don't have a place to start."

As if in answer to their prayers, a loud thump echoed across the Annex. The Librarians looked eagerly to where the clippings books were but none of them had moved even a single page and were silent. Looking at each other in confusion, they glanced at where the charred remains of the Library's clippings book was, but it was still in reassembly and no where near being ready for use.

"What…?" Flynn started when the sound came again. And again, and a third time and finally Jenkins was drawn to the corner of the room, near the staircase.

"The sorting cards." he murmured, making his way over to the shelving unit.

"Excuse me, the what?" Ezekiel said. "Is that anything like the Sorting Hat?"

"Ooh, dibs on being first for that!" Cassandra squealed. "I am totally a Ravenclaw."

"Gryffindor." Stone boasted, puffing his chest a little and winking at his girlfriend.

"I'd say I'm a Slytherin, cause they're so much cooler, but you know what they say about Hufflepuffs and finding things." Ezekiel smirked. "And Ezekiel Jones is great at finding things."

"See, I'd be in the same pot as Cassandra. Ravenclaws are more my area. "Wit beyond measure -"

"Flynn." Baird rolled her eyes, giving her significant other such a look that he shut his mouth with an audible click. "Firstly, not important. Second, your tweed jacket just screams "Hufflepuff", and Stone, you so could be a Ravenclaw with all your book smarts. And third, Jenkins, what are the sorting cards?"

"You all should really invest in your local, nonmagical library." the caretaker huffed, but he showed them over to where there were rows and rows of thin metal drawers built into the wall of the Library. "No matter how many times the Library reorganized itself, everything is categorized with it's current place on a card. Every library has them, ours just stay up to date."

"I'm confused." Baird said slowly. "What does this have to do with the -"

In a second, right in front of their eyes, one of the many drawers bagged to rattle, and it quickly slid out and slammed back in, repeating the noise they had heard. It slid open again, revealing about one hundred white index cards, and slowly, as if purposefully taunting them or enjoying the dramatic tension, one single card slid out.

"Well. It sure knows how to put on a show." Flynn huffed.

"What's the card say?" Cassandra asked, her newfound energy making her bounce on her toes.

"Independence, Missouri." Jenkins read, his brow furrowing in confusion. "I don't think we have that in stock."

"Jenkins, do these cards tell only of what the Library has or can they work the same way as the clippings books?" Baird assessed.

"Well, seeing as all the outlets to the Library's communication has been temporarily severed…." Jenkins mused, "I suppose these cards could work as directional advice. Though, it is limited. See, we only have a location, nothing more."

"It's better than nothing." Baird said. "First thing we've gotten in a week. We'll take it."

"Alright. I shall set the backdoor." Jenkins strode forward, handing the card to Flynn for safekeeping. "Mr. Jones, Mr. Carson. Pack Pandora's Box into a satchel for your travels."

"You can say the word "backpack" Jenkins. It won't kill you." Ezekiel sighed.

"Mr. Stone, Ms. Cillian. What can you relate about our missing idols and Independence, Missouri?" Jenkins continued as if never having heard Ezekiel's smarts comment.

"I'm….actually not sure." Cassandra looked horridly at Stone, who touched her elbow in reassurance.

"We'll come up with something. Maybe once we get there and see the traces of magic and where they lead….but until we know any possible significance in relation to one of the idols…I can't pinpoint the exact signs and narrow it down to a possibility." Stone laid out.

"So let's get there and start assessing." Baird said, striding forward to stand before the backdoor. "Alright, team. Enough lazing around. We're back in action."

* * *

The back door dropped them off at an abandoned construction site, same as it did before a week ago in Forks, Washington. The silence was deafening, and even as they hit the ground, Ezekiel Jones could tell that there was something off. The area surrounding the empty construction site was just empty masses of field and only a bare dirt road stretching endlessly in either direction.

"This is Independence, Missouri?" Ezekiel waved his arms around. "This? This is more barren than my mother."

"Okay, um, what?" Cassandra blinked in surprise. "I really didn't need to know that."

"Same here." Baird shot him a questioning look. "Jones, remind me to have a talk with you later about that….revelation."

"Will do, Colonel." Ezekiel rolled his eyes, inwardly cursing himself out. It was his job to play it cool, and he hated it when one tiny thing would slip and it would become a nightmare of teasing and raised eyebrows. Stone was still shooting him one of those and he moved away from the cowboy as quickly as possible.

"Something's wrong here." Cassandra was saying. She was standing at the edge of the road, but hadn't set foot on the dirt yet, her hands and her eyes in the air, meaning she was seeing things no one else could.

"Yes, it's too quiet." Flynn pointed out. "Much too quiet. And where's the town."

"Approximately 13.471 miles in that direction." Cassandra pointed to her left down the road. "But that's not what's strange. There are lay lines here, buried very deeply beneath the surface, as if they have never been touched before."

"So?" Ezekiel said. "I mean, we reburied the lay lines didn't we? Back when Apep was sent back to the fathomy underworld?"

"We didn't rebury them. We got them under control." Flynn explained. "No, these lay lines shouldn't be untouched. They shouldn't be buried all that deeply at all. I mean, they were recently on the surface. They should be apparent, they should be giving off signals of magic, unless -"

"Unless someone or something is interfering." Cassandra stated.

"An idol?" Baird said.

"Maybe." Cassandra hummed. "Jake, is there anything about Independence, Missouri that might help us? Anything at all?"

"I'm going to need some parameters to narrow down the history lesson, babe." Stone drawled, and Cassandra gave him an eye roll, despite the pleased grin and slight blush.

"Well, it has to be something significant. Something that would warrant an ancient Greek God or Goddess to come here out of anywhere else in the world. There must be something someone said, or claimed, about this place that might draw one of them here. I mean, even if it was relatively recent. They have been out of the Box for almost three weeks now. And Jenkins said they'd _know._ So come on, Jake. _Know."_

 _"_ Who did you say we had left?" Ezekiel said. "Maybe if we list them again, your big artsy fasrsy brain will connect the dots."

"What the hell -" Stone growled but Flynn cut him off.

"Stone! We got Hercules, uh, Poseidon, Jason, Yuxa, Medusa, Gaia -"

"Wait, hold up a second. Gaia." Stone paused, thinking hard. "Yeah, she might mean something."

"Um," Ezekiel raised his hand, feeling like the stoner who always fell asleep in the back of the classroom in high school, "can someone explain who this Gaia chick is and why she might be hiding out in a field in the middle of Missouri?"

"Look, all the Greek gods and goddesses are, for all intents and purposes, personifications for more natural things, remember? Stars, earth, natural disasters, emotions, etcetera, etcetera." Stone rattled off.

"The point?" Ezekiel prompted, not bothering to even pretend to care.

"My point," Stone glared at him, "is that Gaia supersedes all of that. She is the personification of Earth itself. It's why her other name is Terra, which literally translates to"Earth" . She's basically Mother Earth. She's the mother of everything."

"Oh God." Cassandra paled. "If she's anything like my mother, this is going to be-"

"An absolute nightmare." Baird groaned.

"Well, actually, I was going to say ornery and difficult and completely devoid of all common sense, but yes. Nightmare pretty much sums that right up." Cassandra said.

"Yes, well, Gaia and Uranus, another one of our missing myths, are the Mother and Father of the Titans, which are the basic pillars of the entire world." Flynn explained, now turning to face them. "Trouble is, there isn't a whole lot on her personality other than being the basic creator. She helped Cronus, one of her Titan sons, overthrow Uranus as ruler over Earth, but later on helped Zeus overthrow Cronus and the rest of the Titans."

"So she overthrew her own children and husband in favor of the Olympians?" Cassandra said. "Why?"

"Preservation." Baird said. "She's a mother and creator. The Titans are volatile, made for chaos and destruction mostly. With them in charge, it was only a matter of time before Earth was a casualty. So she decided to do what she needed to do to preserve it."

"None of this is explaining why we're standing on a dirt road in Missouri!" Ezekiel burst out. Sometimes he felt like he was the only one asking the real questions when the others got so far off track in their magic history mumbo-jumbo.

"I was getting to that!" Stone snarled at him, but Ezekiel didn't back away. Cassandra laid her hand on the country man's chest and whispered something in his ear. Ezekiel watched them carefully. Whatever she was saying didn't appear to be having an effect on him, but after a moment, he backed off of Ezekiel and gave Cassandra a look that even the thief couldn't decipher. It was full of deeper emotions, things that the two of them obviously shared, and it felt wrong to be looking in on that for too long.

"As I was saying," Stone said, but he was calmer this time, "there was a theory, originally stated in _Contemporaries of Smith,_ that the…..well, um….the, uh-"

"The what, Stone?" Baird snapped.

"The Garden of Eden." Stone finally said. "It was theorized that it was located in this area."

Cassandra, Ezekiel, and Baird stared openmouthed at him and Flynn, who was no longer really paying attention but instead studying the edge of the road, still not stepping over the line.

"The….Garden of Eden?" Baird said finally. "As in, the one God created….in the Bible?"

"Exactly." Stone nodded. "Though, based on what we're finding out, I wouldn't be surprised if Gaia had originally created that particular paradise, or at least had a hand in making it."

"So what?" Ezekiel said. "She's come here to create the Garden of Eden here? In an empty field?"

"No. Not empty. Warded." Flynn said softly. Slowly, very slowly, as if expecting some kind of backlash, Flynn lifted his foot and stepped over the line and onto the dirt road. Suddenly, and with the sound like glass breaking, the picture around them shattered and the Librarians were suddenly thrust through what felt like the kind of bubble the backdoor had - a wormhole. When at last the tradition stopped and Ezekiel opened his eyes, what he saw shocked him.

They were no longer standing in a field by an old road in Independence, Missouri. They were in a forest.

Or at least, it appeared to be something like a forest. Ezekiel had traveled the world - he knew a forest when he saw one, and this came pretty damn close. Tree towered above them, the trunks thick and a deep, rich earthy brown. Vines and foliage draped themselves across the lowers halves and all on the ground, turning the earth into a soft carpet. Ezekiel looked around in wonder, spotting mounds of bushes that were draped heavily with flowers of all kind, with bright colors that even he couldn't name, and saw that fruit was hanging on every branch available.

Birds chirped from high above them, and Ezekiel tilted his head back, trying to see a glimpse of the sky. He could tell the sun was shining brightly above the treetops, but there was a thick canopy above them, hiding everything from view. It was quiet, but pleasantly so. Birds, bugs, wind, and even a trickle of some distant stream filled the air softly, and despite the present situation, Ezekiel felt himself relax.

"What in the world….?" Flynn gasped.

"Is this what I think it is?" Cassandra said softly. "Is this the Garden of Eden?'

"Or something like it." Flynn said. "Come on. We have to find an open space."

"Why?" Baird asked. She walked in front with Flynn, letting the three LIT's follow slowly behind. Ezekiel ignored how Cassandra linked her fingers through Stone's, and how he raised their joined hands to his lips briefly before letting them swing between them, and instead tried to focus on what Flynn was telling Baird. He jumped lithely over a fallen branch, his backpack with the Box bouncing heavily on his shoulders.

"There has to be an open space." Flynn said. "At least, according to all the texts. If this is truly supposed to be the Garden of Eden, or a recreation of it, then there must be an open area, a more traditional garden space. It would be where Adam and Eve could converse with God, a clearing to see the open sky."

"Look." Cassandra gasped.

Flynn had been right; they had reached the edge of the forest and in front of them was laid out a beautiful Grecian garden. It was more modernized, filled with fountains and statues, hedges forming a maze of pathways around the , they began to walk through the open walkways, heading to the center where an empty pedestal sat.

"It's like a palace garden." Stone said. "In ancient Greece, the bigger temples and palaces would be surrounded by these entryways and have courtyards of these kinds of flowers and waterfalls."

"So she's not creating the Garden of Eden?" Baird asked.

"No…at least, not in the same sense."

"She's creating her _own_ paradise." Flynn realized. "Except she unknowingly did it on top of a site where people had theorized a fabled garden itself, which also happens to be a crossroads for magical lay lines. This doesn't have anything to do with the Bible. She just wanted a place to hide."

 _"_ _And apparently I didn't do a very good job."_ A sweet, melodic voice seemed to echo from the sky itself, and the team of Librarians looked around in wonder.

"There." Baird pointed off to where they had just come from. The trees at the edge of the forest were moving, folding and writhing together like snakes. As they watched, the leaves and vines braided themselves together, and the branches and trunks molded themselves into the shape of a woman's body. The foliage was long and silky and when it parted, Ezekiel could see that it was her hair, and that the forest had come together in the shape of a tall, imposing woman, her face shrouded in flowers and fruit, but still undeniably sweet and gentle.

 _"_ _Librarians. Why can you not leave me alone? I have done no harm."_

"Mother Gaia." Stone said, smiling. "I'm sorry we have intruded on you."

 _"_ _This was supposed to be nothing more than a sanctuary. My own quiet paradise where I can let things grow and flower and blossom. Why have you come here? I am causing no chaos, unlike my children."_

"You're hiding from them." Baird said. "That's why you warded your magic here."

 _"_ _Yes."_ The earthen woman bowed. _"I am ashamed of them. I created everything, and all half of them wish to do is destroy because it is pleasurable to them. I want peace and quiet."_

"But that's impossible." Ezekiel burst out. The others looked at him in surprise but he motioned at them to trust him. "Look, Gaia, everyone wants peace and quiet. It's the best. But we can't all get it, especially with how the world is. And right now, the world is kind of chaotic. You're not going to get much peace, even with the wards."

 _"_ _What do you mean?"_

 _"_ If we found the wards, sooner or later, someone else will too." Baird said politely. "It could be someone harmless, or it could be one of the still missing Gods. I mean, Hercules, Poseidon -"

"Jason or Medusa - " Flynn stated.

"Or Uranus." Stone said. "Your husband."

 _"_ _Uranus escaped as well?"_ Gaia's face was impassive, but her voice betrayed a tremor of disbelief, resignation, and shock. _"I thought he was still trapped in that trinket you carry."_

"He's out there. And sooner of later, I'm guessing he'll come around looking for you." Ezekiel said, and slowly, as he talked, he reached out behind him to grab Pandora's Box and pull it out. "I take it he wasn't too pleased at being overthrown."

 _"_ _Please."_ Gaia sighed. _"I just wanted some peace where I could create."_

"I understand." Cassandra smiled. "But you have to think of it this way. You are the mother of the Earth. Everything grows and thrives because of your magic. But if chaos gets it's hands on it, it will be destroyed. Burned."

Gaia wilted, her living body shaking with pain and loss from eons ago. It was a timeless sadness. Eventually, she raised her head again. She moved towards them, gliding rather than actually walking.

 _"_ _I know what you must ask of me. And while I cannot say I am eager to return to a earthiness prison, I know that it is best for my children, and for myself."_

"I'm sure it's much quieter in there than it ever will be on Earth." Flynn said jokingly.

 _"_ _Librarians. You have a noble pursuit."_ Gaia said as she reached them. _"You are also the protectors of life and creation. Likewise, you are also my children. Revel in the life you have been given. Whether you believe I am Mother, or whether you choose to believe in what you have sought and found in your life, it makes no real difference to me. You have become warriors, thinkers, protectors. Save this world. Help it grow."_

Slowly, Gaia reached down with one of the branches that had molded itself as her arm. It twisted and stretched with a life of its own, and as it came down, Ezekiel raised the Box to meet it. As soon as the very tip of the tendril touched the lid, there was a gentle light, as if the sun had gotten just a few shades brighter and a few degrees warmer, and then they were back standing in an empty field in Independence, Missouri.

"I liked her." Cassandra said after a few moments. "She was kind."

"Why can't they all be like that?" Stone chuckled. "I know we only barely got started, but come on. We've had it easy so far. I got a feeling it ain't going to stay this nice and neat."

"Trouble is, we won't see it coming." Flynn sighed.

"Let's hope we do." Baird said. "Or else we won't make it out of this alive."


	10. Hercules

**A/N: I realize that I've made the story so far rather easy in terms of collecting the missing idols, so here is my attempt to make things a little more difficult. I was watching Librarians last night and I realized that not enough went wrong in my story, so here comes trouble! That's also why it's a tad longer than normal….**

 **Please continue to review guys. Each review means the world to me and I love everything you have to say.**

 **ALSO: NOT A DEATH-FIC, JUST WHUMP!**

 **Anyways….let's continue!**

* * *

"Cassandra. Report." Baird barked as she marched down the stairs of the Annex. Cassandra jumped up from where she had been seated at the center table, a sheet of paper held readily in front of her.

"Hercules, the Ikhthyokentauroi, Jason, Koalemos, Lelantos, Medusa, Nyx, Oneiroi, Poseidon, Qilin, Rhea, Selene, Theia, Uranus, the Valkyries, Wendigo, Xanthus, Yuxa, and a Zlatorog." the genius Librarian rattled off in her typical chipper voice.

Baird reached the floor and strode toward her. They were the only two currently in the Annex, the others having been given their own assignments. Baird had thought that with the amount of magic running rampant over Earth, they needed to step up their game. They had been lucky so far - each God they had captured hadn't been particularly dangerous, and none had regained their full magical power yet, so they were more docile than they otherwise could be. Usually, by this time in any of their wacky adventures, one of them had been seriously hurt or kidnapped or put into a possibly fatal situation that needed extraordinarily quick thinking and/or a magical solution. That hadn't happened yet here, and Baird would be damned if she would let it. This time, they would be smart about this.

Baird had taken charge the second they had gotten back from Missouri and had settled back into the version of her that had all but disappeared once she had left NATO. She had barked orders left and right, taking command not only as their "den mother" as Ezekiel once called her, but also their Guardian. She had Jenkins and Flynn off somewhere in the Library searching for books on anything and everything regarding the box, Greek idols, and basically anything regarding Greece or that could be connected to Greek mythology. They would be informed for every possible scenario.

Ezekiel and Stone were back at the original crime scene in Athens, New York, where the small Greek antiquities shop had burned down. Baird had a feeling that they had missed something. Maybe it was in the wreckage itself, or maybe someone had been there that they had missed….she didn't know. But she had learned long ago to trust her gut feelings, so with a short barking order, she had fired up the back door and sent the boys to the city to find some answers.

Cassandra was in charge of organizing and listing the remaining Gods they had to hunt down, and if possible, categorize them into a list of the ones that posed the most danger to them and the world. In other words, a ranking of who and what they had to worry about in the immediate future. Baird had kept her here for a few reasons. For one, she and Cassandra hadn't really had a one on one in a while. Sure, there had been the thing with Eros when the boys had been either head over heels for them or knocked unconscious. But they hadn't really had a talk in a long while. It had been ages since their last girl's night, and now with this new Apocalypse right after the last one with Apep….all of them were in dire need of a break. Not that they would get one any time soon. Right now, in the midst of researching, this was the closest thing they would come to for a while.

"Baird….Baird!"

Eve Baird blinked suddenly, jerking as she realized that she had been zoning out for the last several minutes. Cassandra was looking up at her in concern, one hand reached out in front of her face. She had clearly been trying to get her attention for some time now.

"I'm sorry, Cassandra. What were you saying?"

"Um," Cassie bit her lip, "well, I was saying that despite everything, and I mean everything I tried from potential variations to current standing ratios, I don't see a way for me to accurately list and rank the remaining Gods to figure out which ones we need to focus on. I can't predict which ones are going to pose the biggest threats. There are so many unknown variables that I can't fill in - like how long have they been outside the box, what is the actually range of their estimated power, what's their motivation currently. By my first estimations, Gaia should have been one of the most dangerous Goddesses to capture. We should have had so much trouble with her, but we didn't because her Mother Earth instincts and her personality and the fact that she knew we were trying to save the world made her complexly gentle and docile. She was the complete opposite of what she should have been."

"So what you're saying is that we are more or less flying blind when it comes to who or what we face next." Baird sighed.

"Well, yeah." Cassandra scrunched up her face in distaste and Baird smiled. She viewed this younger woman as a little sister of sorts, and sometimes she was so caught up in work and saving the world that she forgot how Cassandra could be utterly impressive and lightyears ahead in one second and so innocent and naive in the next.

"I guess that just leaves us waiting for now." Baird said and she went to take a seat on the other side of the table.

"I guess it does." Cassandra sat to face her and both women were content to sit in silence for a few minutes before Baird finally said the thing that had been on her mind for the last few days.

"So…..you and Stone, huh?"

Cassandra froze, and Baird couldn't tell if it was shock and surprise over the question or some inane fear that Baird would be angry that two of her Librarians were in a relationship. Not that she was one to talk, what with her and Flynn's ever complicated romance.

"Uh - what?" Cassandra squeaked, staring pointedly at the books and papers strewn in front of them on the Annex table. Baird reached over and nudged the younger woman in the shoulder.

"Cassie, it's okay. Honestly, it's about damn time the two of you confessed your feelings and got together. I mean, seriously, with the flirting and the "will-they, won't-they" dynamic -"

"Hey, speak for yourself!" Cassandra pushed her back, but she was laughing and while she was till blushing, there was an ecstatic grin on her face.

"Okay, okay, fair enough!" Baird chuckled. "But seriously, how's it going? You and Stone?"

Cassandra thought about it for minute, her mind fast forwarding over the last week and a half (had it really been that long? It felt both like a day and forever) and she could feel the smile broadening her cheeks against her will and she felt the heated flush on her cheeks.

"Eve, it's…" she sighed, "I mean, it's Jake. In a way, it's always been Jake. He's just so - so sweet! Oh, and he's sung to me, and I just - I love-" she paused. "I don't know how to really explain it. We've only been together a short while, and with this new Apocalypse, there hasn't been much time for any real date -type stuff."

"Has he kissed you?" Baird asked. Boy, did she miss this kind of girl talk, especially at the ecstatic expression on Cassandra's face. She had a feeling Cassandra had been dying to gossip about what had been going on just a little bit, too.

"I kissed him. And he kissed back. And then we were both kissing - each other! And since then it's been sitting close together and tight hugs and he'll tuck my hair behind my ear and hold my hand when I'm getting stressed, and -" she bit her lip, "Okay, so like I said, we've been together only two weeks, and we're taking things very slowly, but we've cuddled together and Eve, he's so _strong -"_

There was a flash of blue-white light, and Baird and Cassandra turned to see the back door fly open and Jacob Stone and Ezekiel Jones tumble out. As they straightened out, Baird saw that the knees of their jeans as well as their hands were covered in ashy soot, but other than that and an air of mild annoyance, there was nothing to suggest their search had turned up anything of interest.

"Nothing?" Baird said anyways. Ezekiel brushed more soot of his hands and walked around her nonchalantly.

"Except pissed off officers and the fact that everything is still covered in ash. Like they can't get rid of the stuff."

"It came from a magical explosion." Stone said. He had walked over to where Cassandra was still sitting and now had his arms wrapped over her shoulders. She was resting her head on his chest contentedly. "It won't fade."

"Damn." Baird sighed. "Sorry for the wild goose chase, guys. But I thought for sure…."

"We said we didn't find anything. Not that there was nothing there." Stone interrupted her. "There's definitely something there besides that Greek shop. It could have been an idol, but whoever it is, is long gone now. Either way, you were right. Someone, or something, was hanging around after the explosion."

"Hm." Baird frowned. "Okay. So, you three, add that to the factors that we've complied for our remaining targets and see if we can narrow down the list. It has to be someone who's clever, cunning, and had enough forethought after being released to surveil the aftermath."

"They wanted to see who would come to clean up the magical mess." Cassandra said.

"They wanted to see the Librarians." Stone realized, and he straightened up. A loud clattering came from upstairs and the four of them turned to see Flynn and Jenkins making their way haphazardly down the stairs of the Annex, Jenkins with a little more steadiness than Flynn.

"We got something!" Flynn panted. "Well, maybe not something, but it's a piece of what could be…a piece of…something."

He held up what looked like tanned leather, with inky black dots and markings etched all over it. He laid it down flat on the table, pushing all the books and papers into Cassandra's lap. Both she and Stone glared at the Librarian but he took no notice, completely enthralled in whatever it was he had found. Baird came around to stand behind him, leaning over his shoulder to try and get a better look at….

"What is this, exactly?" Baird asked. Jenkins, who finally reached the bottom of the stairs, sighed and come to stand on the other side of the table with Ezekiel.

"It's an artifact, of sorts."

"An artifact?" Baird took an immediate step away from the leather hide. "Like, the magical kind? The ones we're told explicitly not to use?"

"Well, explicitly is a strong word -" Flynn chuckled but Jenkins cut him off with a growl.

"Yes, Colonel. It is a magical artifact. However, it's not what you think. You see, this is an artifact created by a Librarian."

"A Librarian made this?" Cassandra questioned, leaning forward slightly to examine it. Stone moved forward with her, keeping his arms around her. Baird almost spoke up (seriously, personal space and professional conduct: two very important things) but when she saw how ashen he looked, how tired and drawn still, after weeks of searching and danger and emotional stress, she figured the physical contact with Cassie was something he needed right now. And even Cassandra seemed to know that, keeping her hands interlocked with his, stroking his palm with the pad of her thumb.

"It's a scroll." Stone said thoughtfully. "An ancient one at that, too. I don't even recognize the language or the writing styling."

"That's because it's not a mortal language." Jenkins said. "I said it was created by a Librarian, yes, but the writing and the language was made by a series of us immortals in an effort to protect certain secrets in the library. Think of it like your Declaration of Independence, or the Free Masons."

"Wait, do the Masons exist?" Stone said but Ezekiel jumped in.

"So what does it say? Or does it talk like in Dora the Explorer?"

"Why Dora?"

"Do you know any other talking maps?"

"No, it doesn't talk." Jenkins raised his voice to regain their wandering attention. "And it's not a complete record either. It's a list." he motioned with his hand and Flynn gently slid the scroll over. Jenkins took it in his hands and turned it over on it's side. "The immortals, myself included, made a list of some of the more prominent magical lay lines in the world, as well as any cities or constructs that held any magical significance. It's remarkably long, and to read everything would take months. But luckily, as my memory is as durable as my life, I was able to recall something that might help us."

He eyed the hide for another brief moment before looking at the rest of the Librarians and Baird.

"The Roman Coliseum."

* * *

"Why are we in Rome if we're hunting for Greek idols?" Ezekiel asked as they tumbled out of the back door. They were in a small closet, each of them pressed up a little too close for comfort with each other.

"Shh." Baird hissed as she eased the door open a crack. "Alright, coast is clear. Come on." The five of them breathed as sigh of relief as they exited the small, cramped space and into the warm air of Rome… at least, it should be Rome.

"Are we in a basement?" Cassandra whispered, looking around at the dark, dank stone walls around them.

"More like a dungeon." Stone motioned to the opposite wall, where the bars of a cell were inset into the stone.

"I thought Jenkins was going to get us as close to the Coliseum as possible, not thrown in prison." Baird said.

"Hm." Flynn mused. "Come on. Let's try and find our way out and see what happened." They started walking down one of the corridors, lanterns inset on the walls their old guide. It reminded Cassandra of one of their first cases together all those years ago, with the Minotaur, and the Labyrinth. Except this wasn't a magical maze, this was human built. That meant there was a definable way out.

"So," Ezekiel drawled, "as I was saying, why are we in Rome? Shouldn't we be in Greece?"

"Not necessarily." Flynn lectured as he walked. "For some of the idols, they were invariably drawn to places with Greek ties, like Athens, New York. That's where Pandora's Box hid itself. Some of the more ancient idols would of course do the same. However, a lot of them are going to be tied to places with the more rich magical lay lines. It doesn't matter that magic is back under control. They're Gods, which means they can reach deeper in the cores of the Earth to reach those lines."

"Which means…?"

"Don't you guys get it?" Flynn stopped walking and whirled to face them, excitement and energy almost sparking from his expression. "The Roman Coliseum? Gladiator fights and war and feats of strength? And royalty would most often employ the services of priests and priestesses, many of whom were actually magicians and sorcerers, meaning the arena sat upon potent lay-lines, as the Librarians recovered. Forget that it's in Rome for a second - think. Who would this appeal to?"

"Oh my -" Cassandra gasped. "Hercules!"

"Ah great. So we gotta fight the son of Zeus now? How about we just beat up his goat friend, or the horse?"

"Goat friend?" Stone looked at him in confusion. "Horse? What - are you thinking of the Disney movie, _Hercules?"_

"Isn't it the same thing?"

"No!"

"Guys. Guys. Guys!" Baird said sharply. The four Librarians turned to face her, mouths clamping shut. "I think I know why the back door dropped us off here." And she pointed to a door to the left of where they were standing. It was modern, made of plywood painted grey, and a neon red EXIT sign was fixed to the top. Glancing at each other, they made their way over and slowly pushed it open -

"Whoa." Ezekiel said. "This is…."

"Amazing."

They were standing in one of the many side entrances in the Roman Coliseum. Baird realized now that the back door had gotten them directly _into_ the lower chambers instead of the amphitheater. Which made sense, seeing as how the entire arena was practically an open ring. It was so huge, too. Baird had always wanted to travel to Rome. She had gotten close with her work in NATO, but it wasn't the same as taking a vacation - or a _honeymoon_ \- in the city of Rome. She glanced at Cassandra, and saw that she had that look on her face that said she was trying hard not to lose herself in calculations and measurements and Stone, holding her hand, was gaping in excitement, probably overwhelmed with the history and the architecture. Flynn was eying the tourists that meandered through the visitor's entrance, and Ezekiel - looked absolutely bored.

"Yeah, as great as this crumbling old ruin is," he yawned. "But does anyone see what we actually came here for? Spartacus incarnate?"

"Visitor hours are almost over." Flynn said, watching the last few people being ushered out of the arena.

"I doubt he'll be with any of them." Stone said. "Hercules, or Heracles, prided himself on being above the mortal man, being as he was technically the son of Zeus, and despite his own mortality. He fought for the common folk, but he would never associate with them/ If he's here, he's definitely hiding until everyone's left."

"But for what?" Cassandra asked.

"That's what we're going to find out." Baird said.

* * *

Hours later, the sun had finally set, and the Coliseum was bathed in moonlight. There were no lamps up here. Except for some structural support and some security measures, there was nothing man-made in the amphitheater. The Librarians were hiding in some of the higher seats, crouching beneath the stone benches.

"We've been waiting for- _ever."_ Ezekiel whined. "Are we sure he's even here?"

"Sh!" Cassandra hushed. "Look down there!"

In the center of the arena, someone was walking from the shadows to stand in a swath of moonlight. It was a man - but unlike any man Baird had ever seen. In fact, despite knowing he wasn't exactly human, and despite her years now as a Guardian and being able to identify the mystical and magical, she had a feeling that she would have instinctively known this man was something _other._ There was a sort of glow around the outline of him, and it seemed as if the air around them became lighter. Baird blinked and squinted, trying to see more of him. He was dressed like a gladiator - with metal armor covering his arms, shins, and chest, and red fur lining his neck and anklets. He swung two large broadswords, one in either hand, and he smiled, and the glint of his teeth was actually visible. Baird didn't know that was even possible.

"LIBRARIANS!" he roared, his voice echoing thunderously in the open space. "I know you're here to capture me and return me to a life of cruel imprisonment. I know you come to fight me back into submission. I oblige you to come forward, so I might deal with you in a way fitting for such cowards!"

"What's he talking about?" Cassandra whispered.

"Hercules is very proud, and values his strength and power above all else." Stone said. "He's stronger than any mortal man, and nearly every God as well. He probably saw his imporisonment in Pandora's Box as an insult, and he's never forgotten that."

"He's held a grudge against us for all this time?" Ezekiel said. "He's mental!"

"And he can hear you, knave!" Hercules bellowed. "Come forward and be ready to bathe in your own blood!"

"We've got to fight him." Stone said.

"What?" Cassandra looked at him in horror. "We can't! You just said -"

"There's no way we're going to get close enough to him otherwise." Stone reasoned. "Look, I'll go down there and take him on for as long as I can. Hopefully, it will be enough to get you guys close enough to get him to touch the Box." He patted Cassandra's purse, where it was hidden.

"Jake, you can't!" Cassandra pleaded. "He'll kill you."

"I can hold my own." Stone said the words without resentment, just as a fact of who he was. As much as Baird had faith that his fighting skills were to be rivaled, she severely doubted his level of expertise against a legendary God.

"I'm waiting for my opponent. Show thyself!" Hercules snarled.

"Here!" Stone jumped to his feet. 'Hercules, son of Zeus, I challenge you and accept your challenge."

"Finally!" Hercules swung his swords. "Come down to the field of battle, man."

Stone nodded, and began to make his way over the benches and down to the arena. As he got closer, Baird nodded to the rest of her team and nudged them in the opposite direction. Cassandra was hesitant but Baird silently put a hand on her arm and gave her a a look that clearly said _He'll be fine_ and _We won't let anything happen to him._ Slowly, the red head nodded her understanding and crawled after Flynn. Baird glanced down to the arena, where Stone was now striding forward to meet the God.

 _Oh, please let him be fine._

* * *

"What is your name, peasant?" Hercules turned his nose up at him, and Jacob Stone did the same to him. He carefully concealed his rapidly beating heart and his shaking voice with the air of false confidence. He could fight - the training he did with the Monkey King and with Baird was paying off - and he had the gift the Monkey King bestowed as a backup. Not to mention, he knew everything about Hercules. He knew what buttons to push.

"I am called Stone." Jacob replied. "And I am no peasant. I am the Librarian."

"Ah." Hercules smiled. "So a powerful mortal, then. But a mortal all the same."

"So were you, once." Jacob said carefully. If he pushed too fast, there was no telling how he would lash out. But if he could build him slowly, then it might give the others enough time to get close, before Hercules killed him.

"What say you?" Hercules furrowed his brow. So he wasn't aware that he was history, yet. Some of the others had been, but Hercules wasn't known for his intelligence. Strictly academically inclined, this one. That would come in handy.

"I know you, Hercules. You were the last mortal son of Zeus. You were mortal all of your life, and only became a god after you died. But that doesn't mean anything does it?"

"It means everything." Hercules snarled, clutching his blades tighter. "I am Zeus's son, and his mightiest warrior. I am a hero."

"But you're also human." Jacob pressed. "You save us, and you condemn us because _you are one of us."_

"Enough talk!" Hercules stepped forward. "You speak of things that do not concern you. And now, for that as well as past transgressions, you will die."

"Yeah, but not today, meathead." Jacob moved into his fighting stance, fists at the ready. He wished Hercules would be honorable enough to offer him a sword, but that wasn't looking too good at the moment. He would have to rely on speed and wit. And maybe his magical rune. Yeah, that sounded….weak.

"Arrgg!" Hercules yelled as he ran forward, swinging the first blade high. Jacob ducked and rolled out of the way, letting the sword his the ground behind him. Jacob staggered to his feet as fast he could, but it wasn't fast enough as the tip of the second blade came slashing forward and tore through the front of his shirt. He flinched as the tip cut his chest with a sting, but glancing down, he saw the cut was shallow, though blood started to blossom through the cut. Another swing cut towards him, and he ducked, letting the arm fly past him before cocking his fist like Baird taught him and throwing a well aimed punch at the crook of his arm. He heard the crunch of bone and the God howled and dropped the sword.

"How is this possible?" he wailed, clutching his broken arm to his side, seething with pain and rage. "Bastard son of a bastard son!" Hercules kicked out and hit Jacob directly in the chest, and he in turn felt a few ribs crack as he flew backward several yards, landing with a groan. He blinked, trying to see through the brimming tears.

He looked up again in time to see the bulk of the God running towards him, his eyes nearly red with unhinged rage, and Jacob scrambled to his feet, turned and ran.

"COWARD!" Hercules bellowed again. "Fight me like a man, Librarian!"

The footsteps behind him paused and there was a swishing sound in the air, like something heavy moving through water. Jacob paused and turned back to see Hercules flinging one of his swords through the air, straight at him.

"JAKE!"

Cassandra's scream spurred him to action and he dove out of the way as fast as he could - but it wasn't fast enough. He felt the sword slice through the fabric of his pant leg, and then just as easily slice through the calf of his right leg.

"AHH!" Jacob screamed in agony, collapsing to the ground, pinned. He could see the black rim on unconsciousness pulling at the edges of his sight, but he held on tight. He had to keep going….he had to fight….

The last thing Jacob saw before he passed out was the looming form of Hercules.

* * *

Hercules looked at the Librarian he had speared in the leg, who was not lying as if dead on the ground. He could feel his incredible anger abating itself, and looked at the man in wonder. Somehow, this mostly unremarkable book smith had managed to break his arm - his! A God, a hero, stronger than all. It shouldn't have been possible, but he had done it with ease.

"JAKE!" a woman's voice screamed from behind him, and he turned with surprise to see another group of mortals running to them, a red headed woman in the lead. She shoved past him, diving to the ground where the other warrior lay. "Jake? Jake, please. Wake up. You're alright. You'll be alright. I promise. I promise. Jake? Jake!"

He could hear the tears in her voice and wondered why. Why was she crying over the fallen man? Was he also a hero? Was he her betrothed? He looked at the three others that had surrounded them. They were staring in fear and anger…and they, too, seemed to be tearful. Interesting.

"Who is he to you?" Hercules asked quietly, drawing the attention of the red haired woman.

"He is our friend." she said harshly. "Our family. He's a hero. All he wanted to do was make the world safe from magic - from you, who abuse it and cause chaos and trouble and pain wherever you go. He was my - my true love. And you've - you've…." she began to cry again, loudly. "Baird, we need to get him back to Jenkins. Jenkins will fix him, right? With that elixir that can heal all wounds? That will work, right?"

Hercules had no idea what a Jenkins was, or what elixir they were talking about, but he could see the desperation in the woman's eyes. And that was all it took for the rest of his anger to evaporate.

"I see I have made a grave mistake." Hercules said. "I took my anger out on you - on him - because of an insult to me of one of the first Librarians millennia ago. He was not to blame. I let my emotions guide me instead of my wisdom. And for that, I beg of you, to do what you came to do."

The blonde woman looked at him in shock.

"What?"

"I know what you carry. I can hear Pandora's Box calling to me. All Gods and Immortals can, and those of us who it has trapped can feel the irreversible pull of the curse. I know you wish to send me back, and I will submit to that as my punishment for what I have caused this day. "

The blonde woman stared at him for a few minutes, then nodded and went to the other woman, who had gone quiet in her grief. She reached into her satchel and pulled the small box from it, and Hercules stepped forward, his head bowed.

"May this begin my road to repentance." he said. "He is a strong fighter."

"He's a hero." the red headed woman whispered.

And with that, Hercules raised his head and calmly touched the box, letting the blinding white light take him over and drag him back to the prison he now deserved.

* * *

 **TBC...will Jake be alright? And what will happen with the next idol they have to hunt? What will it be?**


	11. The Ikhthyokentauroi

**A/N: Back again! I couldn't leave you guys with that cliffhanger! Not with Jake bleeding out in Cassandra's arms, and more Greek idols to find and capture! Plus, my futile attempts to write more sappy Jassandra fluff. Also, a Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and Mortal Instrument reference.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Librarians (except on DVD, which makes me so happy).**

 **Please continue to review and leave comments and feedback. It's how I get better as a writer, hearing what you guys have to say.**

 **Thanks, and enjoy!**

* * *

"JENKINS!" Cassandra screamed as they tumbled through the back door. Flynn and Baird had Jacob slung between them, his arms wrapped tightly around their necks. Ezekiel followed behind them, lifting Jacob's legs off the ground. The wound from Hercules' sword was still bleeding profusely, coating his leg, Ezekiel's hands, and Flynn's jacket, which they used to tie off the wound and keep pressure, in dark, thick blood. He also had blood smeared across the front of his chest, but thank fully that was only a shallow gash, needing nothing more than a few stitches. It was the broken ribs and the near amputation of his leg that had Cassandra worried sick. Also the fact that Jacob was still unconscious and hadn't so much as uttered even a pained groan. Yeah, she was terrified.

"JENKINS!" Cassandra screamed again.

"Flynn, Jones. Over here." Baird ordered. "Cassandra, I need you to clear the center table." Cassandra didn't move from where she stood to the side, her mind running a mile a minute, factoring numbers and statistics over the likelihood of Jacob's survival due to the estimated amount of blood loss and trauma he sustained, and what it possibly meant that he hadn't regained consciousness yet. Thousands of numbers whirled in front of her vision, and yet she didn't utter word.

"Cassandra!" she jumped, startled at the hard tone of Baird's voice. She looked and saw how stricken her Guardian looked. She was pale, her blond hair seemingly white, and she had a smear of blood on her cheekbone, contrasting sharply. "Clear the table. We need to lay him down."

Shakily, Cassandra set on grabbing piles at random, running them to the closest desk, trying to do her part, trying to ignore the fact that while Baird and Ezekiel and Flynn were waiting, holding Jake in place, a small puddle of blood was dripping beneath him, staining the Library floor. She felt bile rise in her throat and gagged.

"Ms. Cillian!" Jenkins finally appeared from upstairs, hurrying as fast he could. "I heard you yell - what in Jerusalem happened to Mr. Stone?"

"Heal first. Questions later." Flynn panted. "Jenkins, we need to lie him down. The table-"

"No, not here!" Jenkins ordered, and Cassandra froze, another cluttered pile of papers clutched to her chest. Jenkins sighed and ran a hand through his white hair, making it stand in end. In another situtation, one less grim and terrifying, Cassandra might have laughed and said he looked like the guy from _Back to the Future,_ but as it was, she was waiting with baited breath, hoping the immortal had a plan to save Jake.

"Jenkins, we're on borrowed time here." Baird said shortly.

"Yes, I know that, Colonel." Jenkins snapped, then froze, and Cassandra recognized the look on his face. It was the look she got when a brilliant thought flash through her mind, or when Jake saw a priceless piece of art, or when Ezekiel got to steal something really, _really_ cool. "That's it. Borrowed time. Borrowed time!" Jenkins turned swiftly and ran down the hall of the Annex, leaving them gaping after him.

"Jenkins!" Baird yelled. "Jenkins! Quick, Flynn, Jones. Put him down on the table. Cassandra, put those down and see of you can find any towels. We have to try and stop the bleeding. Let it clot before we try and see how bad the damage is."

"But-" Cassandra almost argued, but stood down when she saw the surety in her Guardian's eyes.

"Cassie, I know you're scared. But we can't go right in trying to fix him. We could end up making it worse, and he could bleed out. If we stop the bleeding first, we have a shot at getting him through this intact."

Cassandra once again swallowed against the rising vomit in her throat at the mere suggestion that Jake would have to be cut apart, no longer whole. She knew she would love him with the entirety of her heart, mind, and soul no matter what happened, but she couldn't even begin to think of how this would damage him, how it would damage how he thought of himself and his place here in the Library with them, with her. Jacob Stone was only just beginning to allow himself to _be_ himself. If he lost his leg…would he think he lost who he was?

This wasn't like getting beat up by the average bad guys, or in the bar brawls he loved so much. This was a wound caused by powerful magic. Sure, he knew the dangers of this job (they all did), but that didn't mean that they had to egg death on like this, right? Jacob had nearly died protecting them, but who was protecting him

Sometimes she wondered if there had been any progress made over the last few years, if he still thought he could carry the whole world on his shoulders and not let the burden fall to the rest of them. But then she remembered these last few weeks, when the two of them had managed to have some private moments, and before that when there was this underlying tension between them that always seemed to mean something more. Now, with everything out in the open, they hadn't done much more than hold hands, or hold each other, or steal the far to brief kiss here and there. But there was so much trust and vulnerability and openness about Jake now that their feelings were clear. Perhaps this was his way of letting his walls come down. Cassandra knew she was changing, too, by being with him, and it thrilled her. She was loved, and in love, and every time she caught Jake looking at her with those puppy dog eyes, she swooned. Every time his calloused hands touched her skin, she got goosebumps and suddenly she craved more contact, more skin. She didn't want these feelings to end. She didn't want another thing she loved to be torn from her. She deserved to be happy. Jake deserved to be happy.

Cassandra let the papers in her arms fall to the ground as she raced out to the kitchen, heading for the drawers of hand towels.

"Stop the bleeding." she murmured to herself. "We can stop the bleeding. And then Jake will be okay and he'll wake up and try not to groan in pain because he'll think that makes him weak, which is stupid but he's stubborn like that. And then I can take his hand and kiss his lips gently and tell him he was so brave and I - I love him and he'll tell me he loves me too and call me _darlin_ and we can fix him. Yeah. It will be okay. And then we can talk and - and do whatever we want and be happy. Happy Ever After." Cassandra rambled to herself, just words flowing endlessly, but it calmed her down as she piled a dozen towels in her arms before racing back.

"I got towels!" she yelled as she burst through the door. Baird came forward and grabbed several from her. "How is he?"

"Still alive, and that's what I'm holding on to right now." Baird said shortly. "Flynn, Jones, come take some of these and lay them out where he's wounded. Wrap them tight and press down. I have tape and some Ace Bandages. We're going to make a makeshift tourniquet around his leg. Cassandra, see if you can try and wake him."

"Wake him?" Cassandra looked at her love's face. If he was awake, he would be in pain, bleeding out and dying. He would know how scared she was and it would break his heart. Wouldn't it be better if he couldn't feel all that?

"Cassandra, the longer he stays unconscious, the harder it will be to wake him up. At some point, it won't matter of we fix him because he'll be too far gone to bring back. Do you understand me?"

 _"_ _Cassandra, the thought that you would die without knowing how I felt nearly killed me. All I could think about was how I missed my chance to touch you one more time, or hear your laugh, or see you smile. I love you, Cassandra Cillian. I love you so much, it hurts."_

Cassandra heard Jake's voice in her head, telling her he loved her for the first time. It had been right after they captured Eros in the Library. She remembered the feeling of his lips on hers for the first time, and every time since. It had been only a short time, she knew, but she had known him for years now, and loved him what seemed like forever. She thought what life would be life without his laugh, how his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, how he called her Cassie…how he held her and made her yearn for everything she had once given up hope of having.

"Jake, you need to wake up." Cassandra whispered, looking at the still, pale features of his face. "Jake…remember what you told me? How all you wanted was to touch me one more time, see my smile and hear my laugh? Please, Jake. Please, wake up." she could feel the tears on her face, but she didn't care. "We only just…we only just started to….to let ourselves love each other. Don't leave me without your love."

"Colonel Baird!" Jenkins frantic voice broke the tense silence that had wrapped around them. Cassandra looked up to see the caretaker running forward, a vial in one hand and some kind of necklace in the other. "I believe I have your solution, as well as your next location for the following idol."

"Wait…what?" Baird blinked in surprise. "What do you mean you have a solution, _and_ the next Greek idol? How?"

"You can't mean we're going out." Cassandra interrupted. "We can't leave Jake like this! I won't! No, the rest of the world can wait! I don't care if it is the Apocalypse, _again_ , but you know what? I've had enough! Enough saving the world. Let the world save itself this one time. This one time, can't we just….save ourselves? Can't we try and focus on saving Jake?"

"Ms. Cillian, that's what I'm doing." Jenkins said, not unkindly. "Listen quick. See this?" he held up the vial. "The elixir that cures any wounds not made from a magical weapon."

"But it was the sword of Hercules." Ezekiel said.

"Yes, so while this elixir will not cure him, it will replenish some of his blood supply, and slow the bleeding immensely, giving us more time to work." Jenkins placed the vial down on the table next to Jake's head. He then held up the necklace, which was a rather odd sort of trinket, Cassandra thought. It was something she might actually wear with one of her many colorful ensembles. It was rounded with knobs like on a watch, and it held a glass hourglass in the center.

"What exactly is that?" Baird peered at it closely.

"A Time Turner." Jenkins said. "Now, the mechanisms on this artifact are tricky, but I believe I can use it to borrow some time, as you put it, Colonel. Now, the accurate use of this trinket is to send one back in time. However, as that is hardly beneficial to us, I can alter the effects of the artifact so that instead, it will suspend time. Or, rather, it will suspend Mr. Stone in time so that his condition will not better or worsen while you are gone."

"And where exactly are we going?" Ezekiel cut in. "Another job? Look, Stone and me, we've had our differences. But he's my best mate. He's Baird's right hand, Flynn's brother, Cassandra's boyfriend. He's a Librarian. He's one of us, our family. And we don't leave each other to die. The job doesn't come before any one of us."

"Actually, it does." Jenkins said sadly. "It always does. But you are not listening to me. I am not sending you out like good little soldiers leaving the wounded to wither. I am sending you after the idol that could very well save Mr. Stone's life."

* * *

Cassandra tightened the straps her of satchel, pulling the bag closer to her, feeling the thrum of Pandora's Box against her leg. She was nervous, and she knew Flynn and Ezekiel were, too. The three of them had decided to head after the next idol, leaving Baird and Jenkins together to work over Jake. As much as Cassandra hated leaving his side, especially now, she knew she would be of better use going after the Ikhthyokentauroi.

Right now, the back door had dumped them in a seemingly abandoned store in Deer Park, Long Island. Instead of running around like chickens with their heads cut off, Cassandra has insisted that they take advantage of the lack of prying eyes and take a minute to figure out exactly what they were up against, based on their research and what Jenkins had told them before they left.

"Alright, let's go through this quickly." Flynn said. "Stone has about ninety minutes of protected time before he continues to bleed out, so we need to find these guys as quickly as possible."

"Right." Cassandra shook herself, partly to shake the daze of fear she had over her, and partly to warm herself. Though it was June, it was Long Island and they were close to the Long Island Sound, so the wind chill was actually making her shiver. "The Ikhthyokentauroi. According to the lore, they are centurion sea gods with the bodies of men, the front quarters of horses and then serpentine tails of fish. They were crowns made of lobster claws and are considered wise teachers and healers."

"Yes, and according to the research you and Stone did on the Box, we're missing two of them from Olympus. Bythos and Aphros." Flynn recited, pacing the small shop with boundless energy. "Bythos is the Ichthyocentaur of the sea depths, and Aphros is the one of sea foam, meaning if we can locate one, the other will not be far off."

"Okay, so we know all that." Ezekiel said. "And what about what Jenkins was saying? About Pisces?"

"The idols are just like Crius." Cassandra reminded him. "He was part of a constellation. The Ikhthyokentauroi are the Pisces constellation, meaning that they hold all the traits of the Zodiac as well as what's relayed in their lore. So Pisces - " Cassandra blinked and suddenly neon numbers and lines and shapes swirled before her vision, invisible to everyone else. "Pisces is the twelfth and final sign in the zodiac."

"They are selfless, spiritual, focused on their "inner journey"." Flynn interrupted. "They always places great weight on everything they say, never taking a single thing for granted. They're always willing to help others without wishing anything in return, which will come in our favor if these idols are literal to the sign. It's a water sign, artistic and intuition…"

"So basically, we're looking for super helpful man-horse-fish hybrids who like to meditate?" Ezekiel cracked, and Cassandra actually managed a small smile. Flynn barely registered the joke, completely lost in thought.

"Okay. So, clearly, since they're restricted by water, we have to head for the Sound, which is the only body of water in the area that has a chance of having both depth and foam. Let's go!"

"Oh - Flynn!" Cassandra and Ezekiel stumbled after him as he took off out the shop and then abruptly headed down the street. "Wait!"

"Come on, Librarians! No time to waste!"

"Can someone explain to me why we're on Long Island?" Ezekiel groused as they ran after Flynn. "I mean, seriously. If these two are sea gods, why aren't they, I don't know, by the actual sea?"

"Because of Camp Half Blood." Flynn said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Camp what?" Cassandra squeaked.

"Are you kidding me?" Ezekiel hooted. "That thing from the Percy Jackson books? That's real too?"

"All the stories are true, Mr. Jones." Flynn said in a pompous imitation of Jenkins. "Camp Half Blood is a Greek demigod training facility located on Long Island Sound. Basically, it's been abandoned for millennia, ever since Olympus was seized and imprisoned, but the location still remains as an incredibly powerful lay line. Not to mention that the centaurs used to be teachers there, and centaurs are half siblings to the Ikhthyokentauroi, so -"

"So you figured that the two sea-centaurs would be there where their brothers used to be and they'd be okay with us crashing their awkward family reunion?" Ezekiel snarked, but Flynn missed the sarcasm.

"More or less, Jones, more or less." Flynn surmised. "We don't have a lot of wiggle room to be wrong here, so I took the best chance with what information we had."

"Let's go." Cassandra eased her way past the two men and strode forward, holding her satchel and the Box to her chest. "We got a Stone to save."

"That was weird." Ezekiel said.

"Do I sound like that?" Flynn asked, waving his arm at Cassandra's retreating back. "Like -"

"A ginormous dork?" Ezekiel finished, walking ahead of the lead Librarian. "Yep. All the time."

"Oh."

* * *

They were at the edge of the Long Island Sound, underneath a rotting boardwalk. It was cooler down here than it had been above, and Cassandra was shivering in her light cardigan. The sun was going down, and Cassandra checked her watch again. They had forty minutes left until Jake left the suspension and continued bleeding out. They needed to hurry, but the idols were still yet to show themselves.

"What's taking so long?" She whined.

"I don't know." Flynn murmured. "They should have sensed up by now, and come forward."

"Maybe we have to call them. Like by their name." Ezekiel said. "One of them is probably at the bottom of the ocean after all."

"No, no, no… that's not it." Flynn dismissed with a wave of his hand. "They're the wisest of all beings, teachers. They should feel our need and want to help. Selfless and designed to relieve pain. They can feel our obvious need. So why…"

"Wait." Cassandra said. "Ezekiel's right. We have to ask."

"Huh?"

"We have to ask for their help." Cassandra said. "You said they're teachers. Teachers are supposed to help. That's their job. But they can't do anything if you don't ask. You have to be open to what they have to say, to accept their solution, even if it's not what you want to hear. That's what Jake would say."

"Actually, that's sort of what I said." Ezekiel said, but shut his mouth with an audible click at Cassandra's look. "Right. Not important."

Cassandra walked forward to the edge of the water, where the waves were barely making a froth in the sand.

"Aphros! Bythos! We seek help!"

Suddenly, the waves began to whip and foam at her feet, and she scrambled backwards. The three Libraians watched as a whirpool formed right underneath the dock, a suction of blue-black water reaching to the depths of the Sound. It kept opening and opening until it was seemingly fathomless, and then something began to rise out of it. Tips of lobster claw crowns followed by the stern and kind countenance of a man, bare chested and covered in barnacles. As he rose higher, Cassandra noticed that the part of him that was human ended around his waist, and then she saw the brown fur stippling of horse. He stopped rising before he was completely out of the water, but Cassandra knew that eventually she would see the fish tail he had hidden beneath the waves. Beside him, the foam from the waves swirled and piled high, higher than where the first creature stood, until the foam morphed itself into a symmetrical image of the first.

"Bythos, idol of the sea-depths." Flynn said formally. "And Aphros, of the sea - foam.

Thank you for answering our call for help."

"Our purpose is to give guidance to those who ask." Bythos said, his voice blurred like running water. "What is is that you seek?"

"Our - our friend," Cassandra stuttered. "He's hurt. Very badly. Dying. He was injured by Hercules and now we don't know how to heal him. We seek your guidance in how to save our friend. Please. I can't lose him."

"She loves him." Aphros said, his voice lighter like bubbles. "And a love that strong deserves a chance to flourish."

"Indeed." Bythos agreed. Slowly he reached down and ran his hand through the water around him, swirling it in small ripples. Gently, Cassandra watched as a small vial was raised from the waves and one carried it to shore. She picked it up and wondered at the almost black liquid inside the crystal bottle. "This will heal his physical wounds without any repercussions. However, I warn you that his mental state is his alone to heal from."

Cassandra nodded, though she swallowed against a lump in her throat. This had to work. There was no other choice.

"I sense there is more you three have come here for." Bythos said, eyeing them blankly. Flynn cleared his throat and glanced at the bag in Cassandra's arms where the Box hid.

"Yes. Yes, there is more. You see, we are The Librarians." Flynn began, but before he got any further, Aphros hissed and the froth are higher.

"Brother, NO!"

Suddenly, a wave of sea -foam rose above them and came crashing down, startlingly cold and knocking them off their feet. Cassandra lost her grip on her bag and it was torn form her grasp. She tried to yell out, opening her mouth, but she sucked in a mouthful of sea water and began to cough and choke, unable to take in any air. She tried to open her eyes, but the water stung and it was too murky to make out any shapes. Her limbs felt heavy and numb, and Cassandra had the fearful vision of her drowning, lost to the ocean as Jake bled out miles away, never knowing how hard she was trying to save him.

Then, it all stopped. She was lying face down in the sand, hacking and wheezing, throwing up lungfuls of salt water. Beside her, Ezekiel and Flynn were doing the same.

"I am so sorry." Bythos's voice said behind them. Fearful, Cassandra whirled around, despite her frozen and aching muscles, but she only say Bythos still standing further out in the water. Aphros was gone. "My brother was only acting out of fear and what he thought best for the two of us. He meant no real malice."

"What - what -?" Ezekiel wheezed but he resorted to a fit of coughing.

"He feared what was in your bag, Librarians." Bythos said. He held up the satchel, now completely waterlogged. "As do I, but I know why you came. I know your reason for existing and why you came to us, both selfishly and unselfishly."

"Please…" Cassandra said hoarsely. "We're trying to save millions of people. Pandora's Box -"

"Is a prison." Bythos said, but there was only truth in his voice. "But it is a necessary prison, isn't it? You called to us for help, for your friend and for the world. You wish to save them all, and as a teacher, I cannot refuse to help if I see a possible solution. I gave you what you need to help your friend, and now I will give you what you need to help the world."

And Bythos raised the bag in the air, and once more there was an incredible surge of water, though it crashed away from the shivering Librarians, submerging him in the waves. For a minute, all that was visible was the bag holding Pandora's Box inside a tower of brackish water, but then it all gently fell apart, and Cassandra's bag washed up right to the sand, and all was quiet underneath the boardwalk.


	12. Jason

**A/N: Thanks so much for the awesome reviews guys! I didn't expect as much response as I got, and I hope for more as the chapters continue! Seriously, thank you all so much!**

 **CheshireFox16:** As an avid Librarians fan and classicist by trade, I adore this. Can't wait for the next chapter!

 **Nahimana7:** The only thing I can think of to say about this fic is: OMG please more.

 **LadyMarianne123:** Lovely! So the Percy Jackson Camp Half-Blood exists in the world of the Librarians, too? Nice - I can see some wild stories from that. I liked this last story though it is sad that Bythos and Aphros had to go back into that prison even though they were so kind and giving. Too giving - which makes the prison their only safe house to keep them from being exploited. Still - nicely done.

 **You guys really understand my writing and what I try to accomplish with the story. Thank you for these awesome reviews, and those I couldn't mention here but were just as awesome! Love them all and hope for more!**

 **General Disclaimer: I do not own Librarians or any references made in the writing of this fan fiction.**

 **Please continue to review! And enjoy!**

* * *

The three Librarians tumbled through the back door, soaking wet and smelling like grungy salt water, but bursting with desperate energy. Eve Baird and Jenkins whirled around from where they were waiting over Jacob Stone's pale body, and Cassandra felt her heart leap into her throat when she saw how still he was. Almost as if he could sense her panic, Jake gave a small shuddering inhale of breath, choking slightly at the buildup of blood in his mouth, and Cassandra knew he must have punctured a lung.

"Jenkins!" Flynn yelped as he struggled to get to his feet, slipping and sliding on the wet floor. "Eve! We got it! We got the Ikyth-Ikkeyth- the mythical centurion sea people and the elixir to save Stone!"

"Excellent, Mr. Carson!" Jenkins ran around the table, hand outstretched. "Hurry now. He hasn't got much time."

Flynn shoved the bottle of elixir into Jenkins' hand and the three shivering Librarians slid their way over to the table to watch the caretaker work and hope they weren't too late. Jenkins unstoppered the vial the two centurion idols had given the Librarians and pulled a small silver hourglass from his pocket. To Flynn it seemed as though it was glowing, but upon closer inspection, he saw that it was spilling sand at such a fast pace that it was almost transparent.

"Fascinating." Flynn leaned in to take a closer look but before he could, Jenkins had put it back in his pocket again.

"More like alarming. Mr. Stone is declining at a more rapid pace now that the Time Turner has lost its effect. I need to administer the elixir now."

"Jenkins - " Cassandra's voice cracked and Flynn saw that she was shaking, tears streaming down her face. He knew hers and Jacob's relationship was relatively new, and they were both crazy about each other…but this….clearly she cared very deeply about him. About as deeply as he himself cared for Baird. And if he lost her….Flynn felt himself pale and his eyes prickled. He glanced over at his Guardian, who also had tears in her eyes, but was restraining herself. Her eyes caught his, and he could read the fear - fear of losing Jacob, her friend and prodigy, and the fear of what his death would inevitably do to Cassandra.

"Jenkins," Cassandra said again, "please, save him. You have to save him!"

Jenkins didn't answer her, but there was a new urgency to his motions. He reached under the table and pulled out a small tray, with a bowl, a few rags, a syringe and a small glowing golden crystal. As Stone's breath hitched, Jenkins poured the elixir into the bowl, swirling it around while waving the crystal over it, murmuring words in a language even Flynn barely understood, though, he thought with a pang, Stone would probably have no trouble. But if Stone were even conscious enough to even try and translate, Jenkins wouldn't be saying it - and none of this would be happening. As he spoke, the liquid in the bowl began to glow, and the team stepped back from the table slightly.

Stone's body began to convulse, and Cassandra screamed in anguish and ran forward again, but the three of them held her back, even as she thrashed against them. Memories from decades ago plagued Flynn's mind now, of friends and mentors and of himself acting the same way in the wake of death…when Nicole died in the explosion…when his vampire lover had burned to ash in front of his eyes….when Charlene and Judson had gone….and all those years ago, when his mother had passed…. Death was inevitable, but knowing that never made it any easier.

"Cassandra, you need to calm down and let Jenkins work." Baird was saying, but it had no effect on the young heartbroken girl.

"Cassandra, Stone is a fighter." Ezekiel said. "He'll pull through. He has to."

"Jake….JAKE!" Cassandra continued to scream, despite all they were saying, so Flynn turned his attention back to his fallen Librarian and Jenkins, who was still murmuring incoherently above the glowing bowl.

Just as Stone's seizing was slowing down, the glowing became an intense white light, and suddenly Jenkin's tossed the crystal back onto the table and picked up the syringe. With a practiced motion, he jabbed the tip of the needle into the crook of Stone's arm, and pushed whatever was inside the syringe into his bloodstream.

"What are you doing?" Cassandra stopped thrashing long enough to notice the change, but she started again almost immediately. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HIM?!"

"Ms. Cillian, with all due respect, please shut up!"

The four of them stood shocked as Jenkins snapped, tossing the empty syringe aside and picking up the rags, still stirring the bowl with the brightening liquid in his other hand. He laid the rags out one by one, the first on Jacob's still bleeding leg, the second on top of the gash on his chest, and the third on his forehead, laying it just over his eyes. Finally, Jenkins raised the bowl high over his head, and chanted at the top of his voice.

It was another foreign language, different than before, and also somehow older. In that moment, Flynn didn't see Jenkins, the ageless, elderly caretaker of the Library's Annex - he saw Sir Galahad, a knight of the legendary round table, an immortal warrior and a skilled magician.

The glow of the elixir seemed to get even brighter, if that was even possible. And just as Flynn's eyes began to water against the light, Jenkins brought the bowl down and immediately forcibly poured it all down Stone's throat.

Stone stopped seizing. His body seemed frozen for a split second before relaxing back against the table. As Jenkins stepped back, wiping his forehead of sweat, Cassandra broke free of their loose arms and ran to Stone. More slowly, the rest of them followed, and Flynn saw that, while he still looked a little pale and feverish, Stone was breathing easier now, and at long last, the bleeding around his leg was starting to stop.

"Is he.." Cassandra swallowed. "Will he be alright?"

"In due time, yes. His body needs time to absorb the elixir and the healing spell. It'll take several hours, some of which might be excruciatingly painful as the injuries heal themselves from the inside out, which is why I established a powerful sedative before administering it to him. He should take this time to heal without repercussions or any further damage." Jenkins explained as he stored the tray away.

"And then he'll- he'll be okay?" Baird said hesitantly.

"He should awaken in a few hours, fully rested and fully healed. But until then, he will remain unconscious."

Everyone visibly relaxed, and Cassandra let out a whimper of relief as her knees gave way and she collapsed to the floor.

"Thank you. Thank you, oh my God. Jenkins…thank you."

* * *

Two hours had passed, and while Stone's wounds had visibly healed enough for them to relax their vigilance, though Cassandra remained by his side, stroking his head and whispering to him. Flynn watched her with a mix of emotions, the top being pride, followed by just a twinge of sadness.

"She really loves him, you know." Flynn glanced to Baird as she approached him, eyebrows raised in surprise. "And I happen to know for a fact he's crazy for her, too."

"I can sense that." Flynn acknowledged. "They've really grown these last few years, and now, watching how she interacts with Stone, and even Ezekiel…she's nothing like when she first joined the Library."

"She's got a life ahead of her now." Baird said. "Things to look forward to. A husband, maybe a family, if she wants. One day. And who knows, maybe that could be with Stone."

"I just.." Flynn sighed. A door creaked to the right, and he watched Ezekiel Jones come in, drying his hair with one of Stone's shirts (God knows where he got it, but Stone would be furious when he found out). "I just sometimes wish I never brought them all into this. At least Stone wouldn't have nearly died."

"No…not right now." Baird amended. "But the Serpent Brotherhood might have killed him instead of his being inured doing what he loves. And Ezekiel might well be dead, too, or imprisoned. And Cassandra…any way you look at it, whether the Serpent Brotherhood or the tumor, she'd be dead too. Flynn, no matter what happened in the past, you gave these guys a future. You gave them a life. You gave them a family. Each other. That's worth the risk."

Flynn didn't respond, but instead he reached out tentatively and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. How did he ever find someone like her? How has life given him yet another to love, and somehow, someone who had chosen to stay by his side, no matter what? It seemed impossible, yet here she was. Here _they_ were.

Before Flynn could say another word, Jenkins came back in. For the last two hours, he had been somewhere in the Annex, presumably researching the remaining idols while the rest of them hovered protectively over their fallen member.

"Attention, Librarians. I have found our next idol."

"What?" Baird tore her eyes away from Flynn, shocked back into the moment.

"Jason. The mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts and the quest for the legendary Golden Fleece." Jenkins explained as he fired up the backdoor. Baird, Ezekiel, and Flynn came to stand in front of him, and while Cassandra turned around to face them all, she never left Stone's side.

"Okay….?" Ezekiel prompted. "But how do you know where he is? And what is he doing? And why is he an idol in the first place? I may not know everything Stone knows, but I read the book the year I was in high school. It's not really a full magical item, just treated like one."

"Jason is technically only a demigod, but he was retained with the rest of Olympus for many reasons, one of which being his great grandfather was the Greek god, Hermes." Flynn cut in. "His long term wife was a Glauce, the daughter of the King of Corinth, but before her, he was married to a sorceress Medea, granddaughter of the Sun and the niece of Circe, and who, according to the myth, killed their two children after he abandoned her."

"But what the myth didn't specify was the curse she also cast upon him.' Jenkins said, finishing the back door and setting the globe spinning. "She vowed that his fate would be tied to that of his grandfather's blood and all who shared in it, meaning those of Olympus and any others that retained a God's blood. Thus, he was banished and cast inside Pandora's Box along with the rest of them."

"But now he's out." Baird said. "And doing what, exactly?"

"That's what you four will be finding out in Iolcus, Greece." Jenkins stepped back as the door glowed, signaling it was ready to transport them.

"The four of us?" Cassandra stepped away from the table. "Jenkins, you cannot seriously be sending us out on a mission while Jake is still unconscious. We can't leave him - he needs us to be here! He needs me!"

"What he needs, Miss Cillian, is rest and time to heal. What you all need is to do your job and save the world from these rampant gods. Now while I know you wish to remain here with him, the fact remains that the longer we hesitate, the more power each remaining God gains on earth, and the more damage they can do. You are Librarians. This is what you do."

"And the last time we did what we were supposed to do, it ended with Jacob on this table!" Cassandra yelled. "I can't lose him, and I sure as hell won't lose anyone else. If the rest of you want to go, fine. But I just …can't."

"Cassandra…" Baird took a step towards her younger friend, "I know it's hard. I know how much you want to stay with Stone. But there's nothing you can do for him right now. But what you can do is help save a hundred thousand other lives in Iolcus. Somewhere in that city, Jason is wreaking havoc and we're the only ones who can stop him. That's what being a Librarian is all about. Jacob understood that."

Cassandra ducked her head and turned to face the man on the table again. Flynn wondered what her expression was, what she was thinking. But after a moment, she turned to face them again, and he knew.

"Okay. Let's do this."

* * *

Iolcus, despite being such an ancient city, was actually quite a modern village. The buildings and surrounding homes were as vintage as Flynn expected of Greece, but all around him, he saw locals and tourists in modern clothing, easy shops and flyers for movies and local markets. It was a remarkably normal town - and that made this mission a thousand times more difficult.

"How are we supposed to find the most average looking god in the most average looking city in the world?" Ezekiel moaned, shifting the backpack with the Box. "I mean, his name's _Jason._ Not exactly an Artemis or a Dionysus. He can blend in everywhere here, and we don't even know what kind of mischief he's even up to."

"I agree with Ezekiel." Cassandra said, sighing. "It's going to be like looking for a needle in a pile of needles. At least, until he exposes himself in some way."

"So we expose him." Baird said, walking ahead of them.

"How? He's been on his own for almost three weeks now. Who knows what skills he's picked up, and how high his abilities have gotten?" Cassandra argued.

"Cassandra, remember. He's only a demigod, at most. Not a full fledged Olympian." Flynn said.

"That just means we have two sides of him to worry about."

"Okay enough arguing." Baird ordered. "If Jason is really this hidden, then we need a strategy to weed him out from the rest of the civilians. Or at least a starting point too start searching. Come on, what else do we know about him?"

"Where's Stone when you need him?" Ezekiel muttered, earning glares from the other three and he grimaced. "Right, right. Sorry."

"Okay. So Jason was the rightful heir to the throne of Iolcus." Flynn started. "I guess the best place to look would be the location of the former palace - or where the location would be in the myth."

"And where would that be?" Baird said.

"Well, uh…" Flynn coughed reddening. "I don't actually….know…?"

Baird rolled her eyes and the other two groaned.

"Awesome."

* * *

Two hours later and they were no closer to finding the mythical location of the palace of Iolcus or Jason, and the four of them were losing patience.

"This is pointless!" Cassandra huffed in frustration. "We're no closer to finding Jason than we were two hours ago, and Jake's probably awake by now. He must one wondering where we are, and if we don't come back -"

"He'll know we're doing everything we can to finish the job and come back home again." Baird finished. "Cassandra, I know you're worried but you have to stay focused on the job."

"You know, maybe we've been going about this all wrong." Ezekiel said, and Flynn turned around to see the thief paused by one of the flyers on the stone wall of an old villa.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm assuming our thinking for finding the palace was that Jason returned there to reclaim his nonexistent throne, right?" Ezekiel said. "But what if that was never his intention? What if he came back here for a different reason?"

"What other reason could he possibly have for coming back to Iolcus?" Cassandra asked. Ezekiel smirked and cleared his throat dramatically before sweeping his arm towards the poster on the wall. The three of them looked over and stared in surprise.

 **The Thessaly Theatre presents a Classical Rendition of the Greek Tale of the Sorceress Medea**

"Medea…" Baird whispered.

"Performed one night only. Tonight." Ezekiel read. "Posters have probably been up for at least three weeks. And if Medea really did kill his children and curse him into the Box, well then -"

"He's not here for his throne. He's here for revenge." Flynn finished.

* * *

The theater was packed with about a hundred people, tourists and locals alike, all excited to see what they assumed was a normal show. It was an indoor theater, which made blending in very easy. Which was helpful for the Librarians themselves - but not so much in the case of finding and capturing Jason, who may or may not be on a revenge rampage.

"If Ezekiel's right, then Jason should interrupt the play as soon as the actress playing Medea is onstage." Baird whispered. They were hiding in the wings, posing as researchers from the Thessaly Library to "observe the integrity of the play". Sometimes being a Librarian really had its perks, but mostly it was ridiculous what people would believe.

"So we just have to wait and then jump him with the box. Easy peasy - gelato squeezey." Ezekiel hummed, tossing a coin in the air. Flynn gave him a confused look but shook it off almost immediately and returned his attention to the stage and the actors waiting in the wings.

"You know, its strange." He muttered.

"What is?" Said Baird.

"There hasn't been a rendition of Medea in almost a hundred years. It's even more dated than Shakespeare, and less well known, so no one has even tried to revive it since the 1800's. In earlier times, people considered it absolute witchcraft, seeing as Medea was a sorceress. So the fact that there's a revival _now_ in the middle of the Olympian apocalypse, where Jason, leader of the Argonauts and the ex-husband of Medea is running loose in the city and most likely here tonight? What are the odds of a coincidence like that?"

"It wouldn't be a coincidence. The odds are too miniscule." Cassandra said. "If you're right, than -"

"This is a set up." Flynn said.

"But by who? Jason?"

"No. No, the set up is _for_ Jason. He's the one being lured here. Whoever it is, doesn't know about us yet."

'But who would even know Jason escaped? It has to be one of the other idols, right? Someone who hates him, and wants to take revenge here on Earth? I mean, I don't know much about Pandora's Box, but I'm assuming that fighting and death is restrained if not impossible inside there. But out here, anything is possible."

"I don't think it's one of the other idols." Flynn said, thinking fast. The show was starting - already actors and actresses were strutting out onto the stage, saying their lines crisply and dramatically. "But it's definitely someone who hates him. Someone who missed their chance to kill him the first time, and someone who has waited millennia for another chance."

"But that would mean…" Baird said, trailing off. Flynn nodded.

"We're not dealing with another idol. We're dealing with another immortal."

"Medea." Cassandra gasped. "She's here. She's alive."

"She's playing herself." Flynn pointed onstage, where a delicate woman was now entering. She was dressed in plain black robes, but the hood of her cloak was down, showing her pale, flawless face and the long ringlets of silvery hair. "She has to be her. I mean, what other way to draw out her husband?"

"So what's her plan? Lure him here in the hopes he's angry enough at her for what she did that he'll attack her and she'll finally be able to kill him?"

Flynn was thinking fast. It was times like these he really wished Stone was here, someone who thought exactly like him, knew the history and mythology like the back of his hand, and would be able to spur his own brain into finding the solution without wasting precious time.

"I have an idea." Flynn said, and before anyone could stop him, he ran out on stage, pushing the actor who was playing Medea's hand servant aside.

"Foorsooth!" Flynn yelled, catching everyone's attention. "I am…..Crisius..Lord of….the Truth! And I am here to collect you, Medea the Sorceress, for deceiving us all here tonight!"

There was strangled laughter from the audience, and murmurs of confusion, but Flynn focused his attention on Medea, who was staring at him coldly.

"Crisius." She said softly. "I never heard tell of a God like you, let alone a Lord. You are nothing but a mortal man. Leave, or I will be forced to end your life."

"I think not." Baird's voice came from behind him and she stormed on stage beside him. "Medea, thou…evil witch. You shalt not….decieve us….forsooth and such with - okay you know what? Enough. No, I'm not talking like this. Medea, we are the Librarians and we're here to stop you from killing -"

"MEDEA!"

A loud bellow came from the other side of the stage, and as Cassandra and Ezekiel ran out behind Flynn and Baird, another young man came onstage. He was handsome, with cropped black hair, and wearing armor similar to what Hercules had worn - a tunic and breastplate, carrying a sword and shield. He looked no more than twenty.

"That's Jason?" Cassandra said.

"Jason." Medea turned to him, completely ignoring the Librarians. "You came."

"You devil hag! You called me here!"

"Jason, wait!" Flynn stepped forward. "Medea called you here to kill you!"

"Not if I kill her first!" Jason yelled swinging his sword up high. Medea chuckled and smiled.

"WAIT!"

There was a blast of light and heat, sending Flynn reeling backwards. He heard Baird scream his name, heard people in the audience screaming as they ran for the exits. Flynn landed hard on his side and he blinked against the glare. Medea was standing in the center of the stage, one hand outstretched as if saying "stop". Jason was crouched down behind his shield, now scorched.

"Flynn, are you alright?" Baird ran to his side, but he waved her off as he struggled to his feet.

"We have to get them both in the box."

"Both of them? Will that even work? Medea wasn't captured to begin with."

"Well she should have been. She has a God's blood in her. I don't know how she escaped punishment, but the box should work the same for her as it will for Jason."

"Medea. I'll kill you for what you did to our sons!" Jason was yelling.

"What I did was nothing compared to your betrayal!" Medea screeched, her hands glowing with another attack. "Running off with that Circe wench, leaving me to rot! I told you you would regret it! I killed our sons so they wouldn't have to live in shame with the fact that their father threw them away like trash! And so they wouldn't see the curse I would lay upon you, even when it failed!"

"Failed?" Jason yelled.

"Failed?" Cassandra whispered. "She trapped him with the rest of Olympus for millennia. How is that a failure?"

"Because she didn't mean to trap him." Flynn realized. "She actually meant to kill him the first time, but she failed! WAIT! JASON! MEDEA!"

The two demigods froze and looked at him, Jason with surprise and Medea with absolute contempt.

"What do you want, fool?" She spat. "We're having a lover's quarrel, and that is no concern of yours."

"I know why your curse failed." Flynn said, and for the first time, he saw the shock on her face.

"What?"

"It didn't fail!" Jason interrupted. "She cast me and the rest of Olympus into a prison!"

"That wasn't her intention!" Flynn said. "Medea, what were the exact words of your curse on Jason and Olympus?"

Medea frowned, but she lowered her hand slightly. Behind him, Flynn knew Baird, Jones, and Cassandra were moving back into the wings. If he could only keep her distracted for long enough…

"I said he and all in his blood would have their fates tied together." She said softly.

"You meant that if you could kill Jason, then other demigods and Gods alike would perish, too. You meant to wipe out all of Olympus." Flynn said. When she didn't answer, he nodded. "I'll take that as a yes."

"You would kill everyone, just because I fell out of love with you?" Jason scoffed.

"Don't you dare laugh at me, pitiful ent!" Medea screeched but Flynn dove forward and grabbed the sleeve of her cloak.

"Listen to me. Listen!" He begged. "You want to know why your curse failed? Because there was another one already in place, and as powerful you are, Medea, your curse couldn't hold up against that of a Goddesses."

There was silence for a few moments. Flynn didn't know where the rest of his team went but he hoped they were close by with a plan in place to capture both of these unstable myths.

"What is he talking about, Medea?" Jason ordered. "Sir, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Athena. She was the one who placed the curse on Pandora after she angered her. She was the one who cast Olympus into the Box, not Medea." Flynn said. "But Medea wasn't locked up with the rest of you. That was her own curse backfiring onto her. She was going to be the last one standing either way."

"If I was a full Sorceress and not a half, I would have been able to override Athena's power and fulfill my curse." Medea spat. "Instead I had to wait."

"Wait for what?" Jason whined again.

"For Pandora's box to be found." Flynn realized. "The Box disappeared after Olympus was trapped. It was hidden all this time, waiting for the right person and the right place, but that never happened. Not until…" A look crossed Medea's face and Flynn stopped, suddenly aware of something they all had ignored weeks ago. "That girl….Pandora…"

"I have been alive longer than civilization itself." Medea whispered, wrenching her arm free. She turned her back on Jason and advanced on Flynn, who stumbled backwards. "After I was left alone, I spent all my immortal life searching for the Box, searching for a way to open it and finish what I started. Ever so often I would get close, but then someone or something would get in my way, whether the Box would disappear again, or the Brotherhood or a stupid Librarian like yourself would try to intervene. Stop me or recruit me for my power, but as you might have noticed…I don't play well with others. Finally, I found the Box again in that little Greek antique shop in America. And it just so happens, I had found the perfect vessel to lure in and open it for me."

"You…you killed that girl?" Flynn swallowed.

"No…not directly. It wasn't my fault the power of the box took her life. She was just a means to an end, as all things are in life."

"So," Jason said from behind her, "you set me free again…only to kill me?"

"She started the apocalypse." Flynn corrected. "The end of the world."

"Or the beginning of the reign of the Gods." Medea bellowed. "The rightful rulers of the Earth. Atlas, Zeus, Hercules. We all deserve a chance to hold the world in our hands, to rule and protect the measly mortals and control them with our power! We are the kings and queens of this world and the next! I am the queen! And I will not be silenced-"

Medea froze, hand poised above her head, ready to strike. Flynn flinched in anticipation but when nothing happened, he glanced up.

A sword was driven straight through Medea's chest. She looked down, shocked.

"Wh-what?"

Flynn moved backwards and looked around her to see Jason, his hand clutching the sword.

"The crimes you have committed against me and all if Olympus are unforgivable, Medea. The punishment is death." Jason spoke with the authority of an ancient king, and Flynn was almost cowed by the sudden serious hostility in the young man's eyes.

"EVE! NOW!"

His yell startled both Jason and the wounded sorceress, but they didn't have time to react. Baird came flying out of the wings behind them, tackling Jason and kicking out Medea's knees in one swift move. Ezekiel and Cassandra came behind her, Cassandra diving to keep Medea down on the ground, and using a piece of cord to bind the woman's hands together while Jones brought forward Pandora's Box. Quickly, he tapped Jason with it, who disappeared in a small flash. Then, he brought it to Medea.

"No…no you can't put me in there!" She screamed. 'I don't belong in there! Do you know what they'll do to me?"

"No." Ezekiel said. "And I don't want to find out. So…good luck mate!"

Another flash, another scream, and she was gone, leaving the three Librarians and their Guardian panting on the stage floor.

* * *

 **TBC...will Jake be awake when they return? Will he be alright? Are there others like Medea out there? And what idol will they fight next? Stay tuned! And please review!**


	13. Koalemos

**A/N: Thanks everyone for waiting so patiently for me to update this story. I know it's been a while (and my other stories have been growing dusty as well) but I, as always, just have so much going on in my personal life right now (both good and bad) so pardon the lengthy intermission of And the Escape from Olympus.**

 **Also, HUGE thank you for all the amazing reviews from all of you. I mean, seriously? I had no idea you guys loved me and my story THAT much. All in all, it means the world to me that you all continue to support me and my writing. I hope to God you continue to do so, not just for me, but for all the writers on this site. Every review is cherished and treated like treasure, even the more critical ones.**

 **So, without further adieu, here is the next installment of the Librarian's story! It's long, but I had a lot to put into this one!**

 **PS: Did you hear they canceled the show?! I'm furious and so upset, its not even funny. So, this story is now dedicated to one of the greatest shows that deserved another season but was cut too soon. Raise a glass, review, and read on!**

* * *

The backdoor always whisked them away in a matter of seconds. 6.43 seconds, to be exact, Cassandra subconsciously calculated, but this time, it felt endless, like she was stuck in the watery membrane of the wormhole, trapped with no way out. For a brief moment, her mind flickered a flashback of the Ladies of the Lake, the floating feeling of being suspended in air or water, somehow, like she was separated from her body and her mind, her conscious mind, was left to drift into empty space. But it was back again as finally, _finally,_ she stumbled out and her feet made solid contact with the tiled floor of the Annex. She took in a great big gasping breath, realizing that her lungs were burning, and her heart was racing and her palms were sweating and she was _scared._

 _"_ _Jake."_ She whispered to herself. She wasn't scared for herself, but for Jake. Was he awake yet? Were his wounds completely healed? Was he okay? Was he -

Where was he? It took her much longer than usual for her mind to catch up to what her eyes were seeing (which she attributed solely to the fact that she had gotten very little sleep in the last three days while Jake lay dying on the table). The table which was now empty of Jake's prone body. Cassandra whirled around. Flynn, Baird, Ezekiel….but no Jake. And no Jenkins, either.

"Cassandra?" Eve Baird noticed her panicked agitation immediately and hurried to her friend's side. "What's wrong?"

"Jake. Jenkins." Cassandra gasped. Suddenly, she was finding it hard to breathe again. She placed a hand on her heart and took in the rapid palpitations. She was hyperventilating. If she kept this up, she was sure to go into an anxiety attack. She hadn't had one in years, not since she found the Library. They were similar to her tumor tangents, where she lost her grip on reality and the steady ground and eventually passed out when her body no longer controlled her breathing and her head was too full to remind her to force herself to do it. "Eve. Where- what happened to them? Where-where is he?"

"Cassandra? Cassandra! Calm down. Cassandra! You need to calm down, alright?" Once she had gotten a semi-controlled nod from the genius, Eve Baird looked at her two remaining Librarians. "Will one of you please go find Jenkins before Cassandra collapses?"

"Cassie?"

That familiar gravelly voice, the low bass tremor that thrilled Cassandra to no end, sent a shiver up her spine in anticipation and instantly, her body stilled, already calming to his well-missed voice. The others, too, froze, in shock or relief, Cassandra didn't know. But the hope on their faces mimicked hers, and slowly, all four of them turned to the stairs, where they took in a welcome sight.

Jacob Stone was standing at the top of the Annex staircase, limbs intact and clean of all blood. He was dressed in fresh clothes, a dark black tee and red flannel and jeans. He was holding a towel in one hand, and as he hurried down the stairs, Cassandra saw his hair was damp. But her eyes remained fixated on his crystal blue ones, taking in the healthy clarity and forcing her mind to forget how they had looked clouded with pain.

"Cassie?" He said again, hurrying towards them. "What happened? Are you alright? Are you hurt? Baird, what happened? What's - where have you guys been?"

No one spoke. They kept staring at him, like he might fall at any moment, or blood would pour from his mouth or leg or chest, like seams ripped open with no warning, and he would collapse, dead or dying on the floor. Or maybe it was a hallucination, brought on by the lack of oxygen to Cassandra's brain while she had her panic attack. But that wouldn't explain how everyone else saw him, too, or why he was looking at her like that, worry and concern and - and there was something more than that. _Love._

And that convinced her. In a split second, Cassandra broke away from Baird and all but ran to where Stone stood. His arms opened just wide enough to welcome her slim frame to his body and then she was kissing him, with more force than she knew even existed inside her tiny, petite body. Her hands grabbed the side of his face and pulled it to hers, her lips rough and demanding over his, begging for something she had been denied for what felt like forever. He was frozen against her for a moment, and then suddenly she was all wrapped up in his arms, too, his breathing harsh, and his lips now fighting for dominance over hers. His arms were like a vice, clutching her to his broad chest, and she let her hands fall from his face to smooth over his shoulders and dig into his biceps, feeling him, feeling how real and _alive_ he was. He was alive. Her Jacob was alive.

She was so wrapped up in him, in how he smelled and tasted and felt, that it took her another moment to realize that someone was clearing their throat rather awkwardly behind them. Slowly, reluctantly, she and Jacob broke apart, both breathing rather hard. Jake pressed his forehead against hers, their noses touching, and she let her eyes fall closed and she took in him.

"I missed you." He whispered to her, his breath cascading over her swelling lips.

"I love you." Cassandra whispered back. "So damn much, Jacob Stone."

Another awkward cough, and the two of them turned to face their embarrassed friends. Flynn was beat red, and Ezekiel was looking anywhere but at the two of them, while Baird looked somehow both proud and bored with their actions.

"Are you two finished? Because the rest of us would like a turn to welcome Stone back to the land of the living."

Cassandra blushed and took a step back - before Jake caught her hand and brought her back to his side. She looked up, a little pleased and he grinned back down at her. Swiftly he pressed a kiss to her temple, then her cheek, and as he pulled back, he managed to whisper again in her ear.

"I love you always, Cassandra Cillian."

The blush deepened and tears sprung to her eyes, but Cassandra pushed it all back with a wide grin as their friends made their way to where they stood.

"Stone." Flynn reached out and clasped the younger man's hand in his own. "It's…so damn good to see you back on your feet. You had us all worried. Terrified, actually. We thought we might actually lose you this time."

"I wasn't worried." Ezekiel cut in. "In fact, I knew you'd be fine."

"Really?" Jake looked at him, eyebrow raised. "You knew, even before you found the magic elixir to cure my injuries, that I wasn't going to die from blood loss from my nearly severed leg, or the dozens of other injuries Hercules gave me in the arena? You knew I'd be fine?"

"Well," Ezekiel floundered, "maybe not right away. But…yeah. I mean, you're Jacob Stone. Nothing takes you down. Not really. So yeah. I knew you wouldn't bail out on us."

The two boys gave each other a long look, and something passed between them. Cassandra wasn't sure what it was, and by the look of it, neither did Baird. But Ezekiel and Jake did, and that was what counted. Jake gave a nod at the thief, who let a rare, genuine smile break through his cocky mask before reverting it back to it's natural cheeky resting place.

Finally, Jake and Baird were facing off. The Colonel smiled before reaching out - and slugging the historian hard in the arm.

"OW!" Jake winced. "Jesus, Baird, what the hell was that for?"

"That stupid stunt you pulled with Hercules! I mean seriously, Stone, you nearly died! Do you have any idea what that did to us? To Cassandra? We almost lost you, and I don't care about the heroics or the bullshit about it being the only way to beat that brainless buffoon. Your life is not more important than any of ours. We need you here, with us, fighting the good fight, collecting idols and most importantly, alive. So if you ever do something as heroically stupid as putting yourself in the direct line of fire for no reason again, so help me God, I will kick your ass from here to next Thursday! Are we understood?!"

Everyone was silent throughout Baird's entire was absolutely shocked, but when she looked at Jake, he was completely unfazed. In fact, a small smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth, and she looked back at Baird and suddenly saw what he saw. The love and concern form one friend to another. Flynn hadn't been lying when he said Jake had them all scared. None of them had ever come _that_ close to really dying. Cassandra had surgery to save her life, and Flynn once had Excalibur's magic, and Baird had a magical elixir. But there had been no immediate cure on hand for the amount of injuries Stone had sustained. He had been fading fast, right in front of their eyes. It had been horrible.

"I said, are we clear, Stone?" Baird said again, but she was softer now. Gentler. More friend than Colonel.

"Crystal." Jacob said in that same soft voice, and he pulled on Cassandra's hand just a little, and she leaned in comfortably to his side.

"Where were you just now?" She said to him. "When we left, you were still unconscious on the table, and then we got back and you were gone, and -"

"And you had no idea what happened, or if someone or something had gotten in here and attacked Jenkins and me." Jacob finished, chuckling. "I get it. Well, I woke up and you guys must have just left cause Jenkins was still fiddling with the back door. He helped me get to one of the master bathrooms upstairs that the Library whipped up from who knows where and I took a shower and changed. The elixir all of you got for me helped my wounds, but I was still covered in so much blood. Plus my muscles were sore form days of not moving, so the hot water helped a lot. I was just coming back down when I heard you all, and, well…" he shrugged. "Anyways, what about you guys? What did I miss? Where were you?"

* * *

It took some time to fill him in on everything he had missed - from getting the elixir to save his life to the idols they had managed to capture in his absence and the discovery of another immortal who had been manipulating the Gods and tried to take advantage of the Box opening to enact her revenge. While they were talking, they had all made their way to Stone's desk, where they pulled up chairs and made a sort of funky circle, with Cassandra and Jake in the center, huddled on top of his desk.

"Medea?" Jacob said in wonder. "Really? She had tried to overpower Athena's curse? And lure Jason to his death using a play? A play? Like with actors?"

"Yep. Full scale. Audience and everything." Ezekiel chirped.

"Ugh." Jake muttered. "And now she's in the Box? But she wasn't part of the original workings of the curse. What'll happen to her?"

"I wouldn't concern yourselves with Medea's fate." Jenkins came striding in from the shadows of the hallway, startling them all from their discussion. "She was only left out of the fate of Olympus because of the power of her original curse, which had somehow melded to Athena's, making sure she wouldn't be affected to the overall fate of the Gods. Now, with her curse no longer in effect, she will be somewhat melded to the Box, as with everyone else. In any case, she is not our responsibility anymore. We must more our attention to the immortals still wreaking havoc on the rest of the world. We still have around sixteen to capture."

"Let's do it!" Jake hopped readily from the desk and pulled Cassandra off with him.

"Whoa, whoa whoa, Stone. Where do you think you're going?" Baird said sternly.

"With you." He said it readily, with no hesitation. "Look, I know you're worried about me. But I feel fine, just a little sore. I can handle whatever it is we go up against, just like I always have. And if I can't…" he paused to take a steadying breath, acutely aware that everyone was watching him carefully. He had an idea that it would be some time before they stopped.

"If you can't?" Baird prompted.

"If I can't, then I have you guys." Jacob Stone finished. "I mean, we're a team. I know that if there's something I can't do, then you guys will help me, and you should know that whatever you can't do, that's where I pick up the slack. Baird, come on. You can't think you can keep me here in the Annex like some kind of lackey."

"I beg your pardon." Jenkins muttered but Baird waved him off.

"Stone," she sighed. "You're right. I can't treat you like a liability, because you're not one, but you're not entirely well, either. You just finished healing from a terrible ordeal - you almost died!"

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I had almost forgotten!" Jacob snapped.

"Guys, please." Flynn tried to cut in. "I mean, Eve, he's fine now. Standing on his own two feet and snarking like old times. And Stone, if you say you'll ask for help if you get - uh - overwhelmed, then I trust you!"

"Rookie mistake." Ezekiel muttered and all of them shot him a glare. "What? Never trust anyone. That's my motto."

"You trust us." Cassandra said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, there's an exception to every rule." Ezekiel shrugged. "I trust you guys - mostly. With this job, yeah. With personal stuff, and thieving and my brand of personal crazy? No way. I can't trust any of you to pull of a con like I can. We're not the Leverage team."

"Mr. Jones, I - the what team?" Jenkins frowned in confusion.

"Ignore him. Barely makes sense as it is." Jacob snarled. Cassandra laid a hand on his arm to soothe him.

"Jake…" she sighed. "Look, we're all wasting time."

"Precisely my point, Ms. Cillian. Thank you." Jenkins straightened his bowtie and jacket before motioning to Ezekiel. "The Box, please, Mr. Jones."

Ezekiel shuffled over to the desk where he had left the backpack and gingerly pulled out Pandora's Box and walked it over to Jenkins, who was waiting with outstretched hands.

"Ah, yes. Yes. Now let's see….we are missing thirteen still? Not bad. Not bad at all, though it's not exactly good, either. Not in the slightest."

"Koalemos, Lelantos, Medusa, Nyx, Oneiroi, Poesidon, Quilin, Rhea, Selene, Theia, Uranus, Valkyries, Wendigo, Xanthus, Yuxa, and the Zlatorog." Cassandra recited from memory, jolting a chuckle from Jacob. "What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing, darling." Jake smiled at her. "Just….you being you, sweetheart."

"Okay, okay." Flynn interrupted. "So we know who's still out there, but we don't have idea who's next or where to find them or anything, do we?"

"Well, Mr. Carson, while you were out, one of the clippings books lit up, the larger one still being under repair. Las Vegas."

"That's it? Las Vegas?" Baird said. "Did the book give anything more specific than that? Like maybe what _exactly_ is going wrong in Vegas, besides the usual non-magical idiocy?"

"And there you have reached your answer, Colonel." Jenkins said, still examining the box. "Idiocy. Stupidity. An above average abundance of it, so much that it borders now more on the magical influence side rather than the natural order of things."

"Koalemos." Jacob said in realization. "God of stupidity and foolishness. Of course."

"And what better place to enact a string of stupid, foolish people than in casinos, strip clubs, night clubs, hotels, motels, and all such tourist attractions in that crazy, godforsaken, drug and glitter covered city." Jenkins said bitterly.

"I take it you had a bad experience in Vegas, Jenkins?" Ezekiel grinned.

"More than one, Mr. Jones. Too much tequila and a lovely young woman named Candy made for an exceptionally bad weekend back when Vegas was just one slot machine. And then another weekend with another woman, also named Candy, and that time was significantly worse than the last. And also third time, this with a young lady named Cinnamon Spice, though that couldn't have hardly been her real name -"

"We get it. You and Vegas go way back." Ezekiel laughed.

"And apparently don't mix." Baird added with a smirk.

"Alright enough." Jenkins finished with Pandora's Box and gently replaced it back in the backpack before handing it off to Flynn. "You have a job to do. Go to Vegas and catch that God."

* * *

Las Vegas, Nevada. It was bright, it was loud, it was full of adventure, sights and sounds and gullible tourists who came to win money if they were lucky, or lose some if they weren't. More often than not, they weren't. But the risk was worth it, and that's why, no matter how unlucky they were there, people still came to Vegas. Still came to the City if No Regrets, of One Night Love and Drive Through Marriage and Clubs that held dancers named Candy and Cinnamon Spice and Lulu-belle.

And now, it also held a very dangerous God, four Librarians and a Guardian on the hunt.

"Where would a God of stupidity and foolishness go to wreck the most havoc?" Cassandra mused. "I mean there are thousands of hotels, casinos, night clubs, back alleys, and that's just in the immediate area. How are we supposed to find him now?"

"If it even is a him." Ezekiel sighed.

"Mythology states Koalemos as a God, not a Goddess." Jacob said. "But in a way, you're right. Koalemos himself is distraught and crazed but also brilliant. If he thinks he's being cornered, he can change his appearance at will. For all we know, he could be a she."

"Well that bring our search from only half the city to the entire city. Great."

"Actually, maybe not." Flynn thought aloud. "We have a starting place."

"Where?"

"The biggest, most successful casino and hotel in Vegas. The Bellagio."

* * *

The interior of the Bellagio hotel and casino was spectacular. Cassandra was in awe. She had never stepped foot in a casino, not after that incident at Jake's friends track with Fortune. But this…this was much, much better. Fancier. Grander. People were everywhere, screaming, laughing, the sounds of slot machines and music and all sorts of casino chaos filled the air and gave it a kind of life that didn't exist anywhere else in the world. Except -

"Is it just me, or is it incredibly loud in here? More so than one would expect?" Cassandra yelled to the others.

"People do seem to be screaming an awful lot. Like with Dionysus and the party." Ezekiel said.

"Something's wrong here. Definitely wrong." Baird called out. "Come on. We have to hurry."

They ran down the stairs, and Cassandra knew in an instant they were at the right place. People were screaming in ecstasy but not from any games. No, the slots were running by themselves, shooting out money automatically, the clanging nearly louder than the intense ecstatic screams. People were strewn on the floor, guests and staff alike. There were bottles and glasses and spilled liquid all over the carpet but no one seems to care. They were lying around with manic expressions, wide grins, laughing and screaming at each other like it was the most wild, hilarious night of their lives. The Librarians cut further into the casino and saw more and more people, these ones standing around Roulette and Blackjack tables.

"Ooh, sorry that's too bad! Looks like the House wins."

"Again! Again! Again!"

"Sir, are you sure? You haven't won -"

"I'll stop playing when I die! I got plenty of money left to lose! Come on, what's a little more fun, eh? Hahahaha!"

The laughter was high pitched and off kilter and it gave Cassandra shivers just listening to it. Oh, this was so much worse than last time. People were losing their minds here.

"Why is everything so crazy?" Cassandra yelled to Jake.

"Koalemos himself is distraught and crazed but he can manipulate those attributes onto others, along with the foolishness and stupidity. He's driving everyone mad and no one's the wiser. They have no idea anything is wrong at all. They're going broke and going insane all at the same time."

"Which means we have to find this sucker and shut him down before he sucks all the money and life out of this place." Baird barked.

"But where -"

"He's got to be in the best place in this entire building . Where he can watch it all happen."

"But he's also not the brightest, which means it's also the most obvious place. Hiding in plain sight, right?" Ezekiel added. "So if he's living it up right now, then -"

"All casinos like these have some kind of main office for the head of the building and the pit bosses to converge. Where they have important meetings and discuss business while also keeping an eye on the floor though surveillance. Koalemos must be stashed there, wherever it is." Flynn said.

"You don't know?"

"No! Why would I know where it is? Do I look like I go to Vegas often?!"

"Guys!" Ezekiel yelled, snapping their attention to him. "I got this! Come on, it's past the front desk."

They ran after the lithe thief, knowing that every second they didn't catch Koalemos, those tourists in the casino were going to die. Ezekiel Jones led them past the empty front desk and down a back hallway. It was well lit and furnished, certainly quieter than in the main room, but still, there were screams of insane joy coming from down here too. They ran until they reached the end of the hall where they stopped in front of a door - one that was off his hinges, smeared with something Cassandra hoped was wine. The screams were coming from in here, and underneath it all, Cassandra heard a deep, booming laugh - a man's laugh, but there was an edge of something…not right about it. Off kilter, again.

"In here." Ezekiel panted. The booming laugh stopped.

"Librarians! Come in, come in!"

Cassandra knew they shouldn't, even though they had to in order t capture him back in the box, but even so, her brain was telling her it wasn't wise. But that didn't stop her feet from walking right through the crooked door, or the others from following.

"I don't like this." Baird whispered.

"Me either." Flynn muttered.

They walked into the room, and soon the whole thing came into view. It was absolutely trashed. About a dozen girls in skimpy outfits were lying around the floor, and draped across the couch, with empty smiles and this glazed look in their eyes. In the center of the mass, was a young man about thirty, with wild red hair and wearing nothing but solid white boxer shorts. He watched them come in with this wide-eyed expression and laughed again, this time high pitched.

"Welcome, welcome friends! Come in, come in! Will you have a drink? Go on!" He laughed again, quickly, and something dark flashed across his eyes.

Cassandra knew it was a bad idea, knew he was a powerful and unstable God, but her brain and her mouth didn't seem to be connected anymore because she found herself grinning like him, found herself walking towards the couch with the girls and taking the cup of wine eagerly from his hand and bringing it to his mouth.

"Cassie! Don't!"

"Aw, come now, Librarian! Be fair and share, won't you?" Koalemos pleaded goofily. "I just want a taste. Pretty please? Ooh she looks adorable…and yummy! You don't mind, do you?" And then smiled and his eyes became black. Cassandra knew she should be worried, or at least call out a warning to her friends, but she found she was still smiling and took another sip of wine. This was bad. This was very bad.

"Uh…no…I mean….NO! You can't…" Jacob was stuttering. The others seemed to be frozen in shock…or maybe they didn't think - they wren't thinking. That was it! Cassandra thought. The foolishness and stupidity led to the insanity because nobody was thinking about their actions anymore. Saying yes and doing whatever they wanted led to them lowering their guard and suddenly, Koalemos was in control of their _lack_ of control.

"You mean I can." Koalemos said sweetly. "Come, Librarians. Come sit by me and watch the fun."

Slowly, against their will, and as if in the same trance that Cassandra was under, the four others came forward to sit around the slumped, half conscious girls and the God who was slowly killing them in more ways than one. Cassandra tried to catch their eyes but Ezekiel's was cast down, and Baird, Flynn and Jake were mesmerized by Koalemos, who grinned viciously at them.

"Good. Good, yessssss." He hissed, his mouth becoming wider and wider, like a snake's, unhinging from the jaw and opening wide. Cassandra thought hazily that the wine must have been laced with something, that there was no way…no way it was really happening…."You know who I am, yes?"

"Koalemos." Jake said softly. "God of foolishness. Stupidity."

"But I am not so stupid myself, eh?" He laughed, like hyena. It was horrible but Cassandra laughed with him. "No, I am smart. Very smart. I find this place in this world, full of stupid people throwing away their money and I think, I can make this work for me. I can make them more foolish, make them happy, make them do things. All for me. They do it all for me without a second thought. And that's exactly what happened. And it doesn't just end here."

"W-what?" Baird said sluggishly. She was fighting against the spell, but losing.

"You don't think I'm all alone in this, hm?" Koalemos chuckled. "See, I have a friend out there, a friend like me. One of us, who have spent too much time in that Box, too much time running from you, Librarians. So he's been keeping an eye on you every time you step out your little magic door. Watching you at that little shop in Athens. Sent Eros to you to keep you occupied. Told us all to go running all over this Earth, as far as we could go. Baited us with the best things you humans had to offer us. He's wicked he is. Spent millennia plotting in that prison box."

What? Cassandra's mind struggled to pick out what he was saying. They were being watched? By who? Was he here now? And if he was, where was he hiding?

"But that's all over now, isn't it? Cause you are with Koalemos now. And I think I shall have my fun with you." The God sneered. "Starting with the pretty red head here."

"No…" Jake said, but it was too soft, too drugged to be any real threat.

 _The bag._ Cassandra thought. She aimed her mind at Ezekiel, hoping that her magical brain powers could somehow break through the magic spell the God had somehow woven. _Show him the bag. Make him touch it himself. Trick him._

In slow motion, as Koalemos reached for her, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ezekiel reach behind him and bring the yellow and green backpack in front of him and unzip it. Koalemos paused, his stained fingertips inches from her cheek.

"What is that?" He hissed. He kept his hand close to her face, only turned his head. "What have you got?"

"Gifts for you." Cassandra forced her mouth to move as she wanted it to, but it was like talking around a mouthful of cotton. Her lips repelled every syllable, knowing it all to be false, but Koalemos didn't seem to notice the deceit. His greediness had peaked and he snatched the bag away from the thief in a split second, his sharp teeth sparkling white and pristine.

"Gifts for me. Foolish Librarians. This be some trick. Well, whatever it is, it won't wor-"

He froze, his face a mask of surprise and pain. He looked down in the back, where already his hands had reached and must have made contact with Pandora's Box. Although nothing had happened yet, it must be in effect because already Cassandra could sense the feeling coming back to her. She stopped smiling and threw down the goblet of wine she held. The others blinked rapidly, breaking free from their spells as well.

"What is this?" Koalemos gasped. His skinners becoming whiter, translucent. He was fading, being sucked into the Box. "Evil!"

'No, actually, it's justice." Baird said, rising shakily to her feet. "We're the Librarians. And we take sons of bitches like you down, who think you can do whatever you want without consequences. But guess what, Koalemos? Even a God like you pays the price."

And suddenly, like pulling the trigger on a gun, there was a huge blast of white light and when Cassandra opened her eyes again, Koalemos was gone, Pandora's Box in his place.


End file.
